Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey there, folks. Welcome to the what the Futures podcast, of course, recorded in the UPL studio. Back in studio here, the what the Futures podcast is your weekly dose of clarity in the complex world of crop marketing, and it's been a doozy here the last couple weeks, of course. I'm your host, Ryan Denis. I spent my career working with farmers across the Prairie provinces as a grain buyer, grain marketing advisor, coach, analyst, so on and so forth, and decided to start up this podcast in November of 2023. I've got another great episode for you. I have Chuck Penner with left field commodities.
We're going to talk about 2025 crop rankings a little bit, what looks good to grow for next year from a margin perspective. We're going to talk about the Durham markets. We're going to touch on lentils as well. If you have those commodities, hang in there. Chuck's going to give you some advice on those. I also have Quinton joining me from JGL Capital.
We think about JGL. We think cows. We think cattle markets. I think about selling barley, you know, to JGL. But they also have futures brokers, and they have, they have a lot of stuff going on. But we talked to Quinton today because one of the most common questions that we get from farmers is, can you open up a brokerage account in a personal name? Quinton tackles that question for us here in episode 44. We've got eating your veggies. The mailbox is full of questions. Let's have some fun with it. Welcome to episode number 44.
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, folks, I've got Chuck Pinner with leftfield commodities joining me once again here on the what the Futures podcast. Chuck, how's it going in September?
[00:02:03] Speaker B: Well, it's hot. Like, I can't believe. It's funny. I remember thinking or hearing earlier this year back at seeding time and, and whatever. All the crops are never going to catch up. They're not going to, especially in Saskatchewan right there. Oh, they're going to be late and we're all going to be frozen and whatever. And here we are thinking more about going to the beach than whatever. I mean, it's great in terms of harvest quality, harvest progress, all of that kind of stuff. It's really flowing and really nice. I mean, yields aren't what a lot of people would like to see, but, but at least they're not, you know, you know, muddying it out or things like that?
[00:02:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I. It was 30 some degrees here right the other day. Now today it feels like fall. It's raining a little bit, and it feels like fall outside of Edmonton, but, yeah, the combine fire, though, like, I don't know if it's just amplified on. On social media or I'm just noticing it, but it just seems like there's lots of trouble out there with fires this fall and. Not good. Not good when. When you see some of that stuff. So.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: No, for sure.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: Stay safe out there, folks. All right. On yield. Chuck, has anyone, like, messaged you and said, chuck, my yield is better than I thought?
[00:03:17] Speaker B: No.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Do you think they would, though?
[00:03:20] Speaker B: But it's interesting, like, watching some of this develop. I mean, the earliest stuff down south was really disappointing, but as the harvest is moving north and then you're getting into central and the northern half of the prairies and things like that, getting more yield results, they're coming in at okay. That was about what we expected, whereas earlier we expected more and we got less. Now it's kind of okay. We're getting close to expectations anyway, so that's positive. The one. The one that's really an outlier, though, is canola, where that one, no matter where you're here from, like, I'm not hearing any great yields, and a lot of them are okay. We got an average yield, and we're happy that we even managed to get an average yield.
So certainly nothing big. But the cereal grains, they're starting to come in now with, you know, better quality, you know, more, better test weights and that kind of thing, and reasonable proteins and all of that kind of stuff. The one thing that I was trying to figure out is talking to somebody earlier this week. We were talking about Durham, for example, where that. That earliest stuff, a lot of it was, you know, number five and whatever because of test weight, but sky high protein. And so there were, like, the feeders were offering them like 250 a bushel and stuff like that. I just thought to myself, ouch. Like, that's very different than a number five because of sprouted or stained or. Or whatever. A number five with a, I don't know, 16, 17% protein. I'm thinking you can probably do something with that that you couldn't do with that. Something that downgrades on a. Due to something else, like some other great things. So, you know, those are things where it's. It's kind of a really different harvest this year. So, yeah, interesting, interesting times.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: Oh, man. So I haven't really been a part of, like, marketing a crop during harvest for the last couple years, like, the. Our farms crops. Right. But helping other people and this year is like, a marketing person's dream, because there are so many scenarios out there and so many different factors impacting the price you're getting.
Like, grain marketers out there actually might be worth their salt here this fall. Like, with everything going on, we'll see. Time will tell. But it's like, for me, I'm. I I'm just seeing all these different scenarios and talking to all these people, and it's like, okay, you gotta move this from point a to point b over here. Cause that's, a. They're not concerned about it over here, so let's do that. Okay, well, now we're over here. Let's move this back over there, because they're not concerned about your problem over there. Like, it's actually. It's kind of fun.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: Well, and. And truth be told, like, years ago, when I worked at Ugg years where you had this huge variation in quality, that's when they made big bucks, you know, from either blending in the country, blending at port, whatever, that's where they made a lot of money. And so, you know, you don't want to. You know, as a farmer, you don't want to panic too soon and say, oh, I got to dump this stuff. It's, you know, again, a thin, lightweight, 16, 17% Durham sample, you know, could probably be worth something, especially later on in the year.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: Yeah, it's not like when everything was full of fusarium and the option was take a monetary compensation for it or dig a hole. You know, like, it's not like that. So just speaking of canola yields. So I've been chatting with growers across the prairies, and even the areas where the wheat yields and the pea yields were very strong. Higher than expectations or higher than average. And I'm not saying a lot of areas, but in those areas, canola yields are still down 20%, 15%, 10% compared to average. And that's interesting because there's a lot of areas that are 50% of average, and stats can. Is going to have its work cut out for it here later on this year. I think the December report.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: I don't know.
You know, I've tried to be a true. Not a true believer, but at least, you know, a little bit supportive. But.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: We could be supportive, having a.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: Harder and harder time, you know, looking at some of these stocks numbers this week, we got July 31 stocks numbers and. And looking at some of those. It's kind of going, oh, come on, really?
[00:07:51] Speaker A: Like, that's just so my problem is I didn't even know there was a report coming out this week. That's how much I put into it that I didn't even. Someone told me, like, oh, the stocks report came. I'm like, what stocks report? They're like, July 31. I'm like, oh, okay. Like, yeah.
[00:08:08] Speaker B: Anyways, the way that that one works, just for anyone who cares how stats can does their business, that one is based on a survey of farmers. That survey was done in mid May to mid June. And then they try and estimate how much would have been delivered between then and July 31 to kind of come up with these numbers. But just for example, I think chickpeas, they reported that there were 1100 tons on farms, like, across western Canada.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Wow, that's pretty precise.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: Well, it's just ridiculous is what it is, you know, especially because you saw chickpea prices kind of doing this all year, all, all summer long. You know, it's not like one guy is sitting there with his 1100 tons and nobody else has anything. Like, it's just lentils was like 29,000 tons across the board. Durham was 50,000 tons. Apparently there's only 50,000 tons of durham on farmers in farmers bins at the end of July.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Okay, interesting.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: Yeah, interesting is a good way of saying. As a polite way of saying something. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: Oh, man. Well, yeah, we'll see. But, you know, if the. If this china thing, you know, that came out last week, if it wasn't, you know, lingering out there myself, I'd be turning a bit more bullish on canola with how things are coming in.
[00:09:29] Speaker B: Like what happened in China.
[00:09:31] Speaker A: Well, apparently they're upset over something, Chuck. So I don't know if you have any updates for us this week, but.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: Well, yeah, that. I mean, that one was kind of interesting. The initial panic was, okay, they're going to slap on tariffs in two days or something like that, and the market is then you step back and you calm down and see what's what. And even when they do, because I'm pretty confident that once China announces something like that, it's going to do it. It's just a matter of when.
But that may be a year from now. So one of the things is that if it is a year from now, then maybe for your 25 crop, you want to be pricing that a little more aggressively earlier rather than wait for next September. And then they put on an 80% tariff or whatever, and then you're in trouble.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: Anyway, I'm on record of buying put options and I, for some farms where movement was hyper important between now and the end of the year. Yeah, we did take some basis contracts. We did do some put options on those. Kept our futures open, though, for some sunshine one day. Right.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Well, and here's the upside is this drop in prices and so on, that and the fact that you'll have chinese crushers that are, that are nervous about having supplies might be buying more aggressively and other countries might be buying more aggressively, too. It's not showing up in futures yet, but you could see some of that kind of a thing where, okay, we are going to step in and buy some of that. So when I, and I think I've probably mentioned this on your show a couple of times, but we're big on seasonals and so everybody's panicking right now that prices are, you know, they're at their lowest and. Well, yeah, that's what they do there. It's called the harvest lows. And in some of the crops, and actually a bunch of the crops, you're actually seeing bids starting to come out the other side already.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: And so.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: For sure.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: And so the question is, is how, how fast they come out the other side. Like what's the, or how far they come out the other side.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: Yeah. To what, to what level? Yeah.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: Right. And so that's, you know, that's the uncertainty. But it's just, you know, don't use current prices as your benchmark for the, for the next six months or whatever because it's the low. It is the low.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: It happens almost every year.
[00:12:05] Speaker A: Flax prices are up. Green peas, oats, malt barley feed barley, those are all starting to work their way higher.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: And you know, Ryan, it's almost as if it's predictable. Almost.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: I'm not sure, Chuck, if it is, but yeah.
Alrighty, folks. Housekeeping for this week on episode number 44. The list isn't that long here, but I do have a show. Correction, everybody. Stop what you're doing. The what? The Futures podcast. We made an error last week in episode 43.
The guys I was golfing with a couple weeks ago also have a podcast. And do you remember I was talking about my 40 foot putt that I made?
Well, I was listening to their show and they called it a 20 foot putt. They talked about it on their episode.
So we're going to split the difference here. We're going to correct it here in episode 44.
We're going to call it a 35 foot putt. All right. It was 35 footer. I'm sure there's video evidence of it out there, but let's go with 35ft. All right. My song of the week, I'm gonna go with. I've been jamming to this one all summer, but she, she calls me back.
Noah Cajon, I think, is the artist, but it's the one with Casey Musgraves. That is the one that you need to listen to. You just, you're doing a duet with your wife, you know, with your partner. That is the song that you would do that duet. Just think about it while you're in the combine. That is definitely the song you would go with. Right? That's what I think. Chantelle and I need to pull that off. All right, what else do we have here? Oh, yeah, well, I want to show this real quick, but I didn't know if you could see that on camera. Those listening can't see it. But anyways, I've been ordering these Leatherman knives for the lunchbox crew and I threw. I didn't know you could design this stuff like I. Of course you can. Right. But these great Leatherman waves and I put the, what, the futures logo on the knife and on the blade as well. I want to try it out. So I thought that turned out kind of neat on there. And then lastly here, the conference, the making. Oh, yeah. It's not a conference anymore. It's a workshop. The making crop marketing cool workshop. Like conference is like information download, right. And leave workshop, though. We're actually going to. We're going to practice some stuff. We're going to do some stuff here and we're going to work a little bit. Have a good time. We're going to learn, but we're going to do some work as well. So it's now a workshop and I'm confident.
I'm feeling good. I think I'll be releasing the agenda on the next episode. I think 85% to 90% of the agenda will be released on the next episode. So what we're what, here? 11, 12, 13. Yeah, around the 20th, I'm feeling good that we'll be releasing the agenda for the making. Crop marketing cool workshop. And what did I want to mention this week?
What did I want to mention in regards to it? Like, we have some great folks coming to present. I'm in talks with a few more here as well, but with talks are going well, so I think we're going to get that done.
But like, some of the topics like navigating contract, buyouts and grade spreads like that.
We'll see if that one makes it to the final agenda. But, you know, that's, that's one of them. You know, benchmarking.
The whole presentation on benchmarking. And, you know, what do farmers spend in certain things? Like, that's a topic as well. And then, of course, we're going to do some crop power rankings and stuff like that. But it, it's coming together, guys. I'm excited. I am excited about Drumheller December 3 to fifth. And you guys are as well. Like, the emails I'm getting with people saying, hey, put me down. Like, I want the details here on the workshop. Like, man, I'm excited. You guys are excited. I'm excited as well. All right. I think let's leave it at that for housekeeping for this week. And now a word from our sponsor, John Deere. There's a whole new John Deere lineup that's out right now. New tractors, new combines, there's a new air car, two, all with built in intelligence that keeps getting smarter. Check them out at Johndeer, Ca.
So, of course, every week we have our positive moments. And for this episode, I have three. And they're a little bit personal, so bear with me. You guys know that I like to over share on the what? The futures podcast. But number one positive moment of the week, Finn got his first haircut. He. He's 20 months old. He's got this great blonde, curly hair. He's been rocking the flow since birth.
Mom finally broke down, brought him for his first haircut. We got a little certificate. This whole thing about his first haircut, he's a champ about it. He also got his first sucker. So he. He's never, never had a lollipop in his life. And he is just on cloud nine here. After his first haircut and getting that lollipop, he's just hit the jackpot. So we got that one for this week, the second one. And all you guys are going to be mad at me about this one, but it's a little bit embarrassing as well.
But I got a text from Jenna, one of our grain buyers for the farm, and she said, hey, just a heads up. You need to price your basis out on your futures contract.
I was like, Jenna, what are you talking about? What futures contract? I'm looking through my notes here. I'm looking through my emails, my messages.
I'm looking at my updated records in harvest profit.
One reason we switched to harvest profit, apparently, she said, yeah, you locked in canola futures last summer. Summer at 23 and now you need to price your basis.
Im like, what did we lock in? Shes like canola futures last summer? Im like, okay, cool. And what does that get us now? Our highest canola contract on the farm. And you guys know that never happens that way. Like, I remember in the bull years getting the call to be like, hey, dont forget about your ten dollar canola contract. Yeah, we wont. Right? Market's now 14. We're not going to figure out about that one. But to get the call, the text message to say, hey, 15 and a half dollars per bushel coming at you here.
Unbelievable to have that happen. A nice little positive, a nice little win. Scary. On the record keeping side. Lessons learned. But here's what happened.
Had a grain buyer there before they put the contract in under a different account name.
So it wasn't popping up on our normal account, it's popping up in a different area. And that buyer had moved on.
And obviously I did a poor job of record keeping for the farm. So that one's on me. But, hey, it's nice to get one. I'm gonna put it as a positive moment. And then my last one, again, I like to overshare or I don't know if I like to overshare, but I do overshare. And so, as I've mentioned in past episodes, you know, we lost our daughter in March of 2019 and Eva was born and passed away a few hours later. And, you know, as a parent, when you lose, well, when you lose anybody in your life, really, it's nice to talk about them. It could be a grandparent, a uncle or whatever, right? You like to talk about those people that aren't with us anymore. And when you have a baby, you don't have the moments to go back on and to go and talk about, you know, the things that happened, you know, during their life, you don't have that. You're robbed of that. And I know many people are, have gone through this across the prairies. But the reason this is a positive moment for me this week is that we went to our, I guess this would have been the fifth baby steps walk to remember in Edmonton. We have a few different groups that if you go through a tragedy like this, you kind of get linked up with if you want. And one of the events that we get to do every September is the baby steps walk to remember. And we were invited to go up and share our story this time. And so we were at a park here in Edmonton and with other families that have gone through the same thing. And we got to go on stage and share our story. And usually I'm the public speaker that gets up in front of a crowd and does their thing, but Chantel's very, very. A great public speaker as well, and a very powerful person, and she could keep it together a lot better than I could up there, and she did great. We were able to tell our story about our journey, and, you know, when you get a chance to talk about your child again, you don't get those opportunities very often. So it's special for us to be able to go up there and share the story. And Trantel did such a great job. We were up there as a family. We had the kids up there with us as well. And, of course, you know, Finn's trying to change the sound on the mix board, and. And Willa's got her own performance going on as well. So I had the kids kind of wrangled in, and, yeah, Chantel did such a great job representing us up there in our family and telling our story. So it's great when you can talk about your kids, and that was probably our kind of our biggest moment to be able to do that. So that's why it falls into positive moments for this week.
I did have a bunch of questions come in this week. Okay. And there's some doozies. Okay. Oh, so that's why I messaged you the other day and was like, Chuck, man, we need you, need you on the show. So, Chris, he grows Durham, and he said, ryan, you've done a poor job talking about the Durham market the last number of weeks here. What's going on with the Durham price, and what should we be looking at here moving forward, Mike?
[00:22:38] Speaker B: Okay, well, that is a tough question because the dura market has been really weird the last couple of years. Of course, last year, what caught everybody off guard was turkey jumping into the market in a big, big way. And so they harvest typically in July, and by the middle of September. By this time last year, I'm thinking they had already exported. It was over a million tons just in that very short time, and they had never exported anything in the past. And so that really caught. And we were out of the market for. Well, could argue that we're still out of the market, although stats can says there's only 50,000 tons on farm.
[00:23:16] Speaker A: It went somewhere. Yeah.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: So I don't know. You know. Anyway, whatever the. So that was the situation last year, and this year, Turkey is still exporting, but only a fraction of that.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: And so I'm not an expert on turkish agricultural policy or things like that, but what I'm hearing is that they're starting to go back to what they used to do is where they would take their own Durham, turn it into pasta and that sort of thing. So it sounds like there's more turkish Durham now staying in that channel now.
Then they're pushing past the exports out the door. But that's fine. That doesn't hurt us as badly. So there is that. Also, on a positive note, european crop, especially the french crop, yields were down. Quality was awful because they got all of this rain and so on. And so that's a positive note as well. So those are things that I think we're going to see some better export movement earlier in the year than we. Last year it was just crickets. And so this year we're going to see some better movement. The one area where it's nothing going to be so good for us is we're going to see more competition from Russia and Kazakhstan. Last year they were exporting some, but that had been like crop from two years earlier. This year their crops are pretty big in Kazakhstan, really big. Now they've had some weather at harvest as well, and I think that's reduced quality.
So again, we may have that niche where we have this, again, blending opportunities. We have some nice high protein Durham. That's, you know, some of it's thin, some of it's not. So we may have some opportunities to do that kind of thing. I wouldn't say that it'll cause a screaming rally or that there's a global shortage of Durham or. Or those kind of things, but. Yeah, but maybe a more balanced kind of an outlook, I would say. So again, we're at the seasonal lows. You know, give the. Give the market some time to work and there will be opportunities.
I don't know what this is, Chris, what Chris's cash flow situation is like, and I don't want to know. So I can't speak to that, but I think give the market some time to work. The one thing that's a little different with Durham than a number of other crops is that the seasonal highs tend to show up in November, just as a bit of a point of reference. So keep in mind that way.
[00:25:47] Speaker A: Okay, good. Good. And with grade pattern or spread on Durham, is there anything that you've noticed where a certain quality is? We talked about number five, four and five being discounted a little aggressively or heavily. Anything on the flip side with the premiums or on the spreads for one and a two.
[00:26:09] Speaker B: You know, nothing yet. You know, those tend to start showing up kind of once harvest is over and they've got all of the samples in and then they've got a bit of better of a picture and then, then they'll start talking to the Italians and the, and the Moroccans and so on and finding out what's needed, especially if, let's say, the french crop is terrible and so on. So it's a matter of kind of finding out what that global grade pattern is like. So that takes a little time to sort out.
[00:26:35] Speaker A: Sure, fair enough.
[00:26:36] Speaker B: There might be stuff already happening, but I haven't seen it.
[00:26:39] Speaker A: Yep, fair enough. All right, great. So. Sounds kind of firm right now and.
[00:26:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: So lets switch gears now to lentils. This question came in in regards to red lentils from Trish, but she said were being offered between 29 and right now. Should we be looking at moving our red lentils for cash flow or holding onto them for later on this fall and this winter?
[00:27:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I was writing an article about lentils earlier this week and it really struck me how the difference between the outlook for reds and greens, partly because again, if we go back to yield reports and all of those kinds of things, the yield reports on greens were, to use a technical term, they just weren't very good. Most of them under 20 bushels, some a lot less than 20. And then as you got further into the harvest, and because the greens are kind of in the southwest and so on, where some of that was the worst. Right. And then as you move further north and then you get into more of the red lentils and things like that, then more twenty five s and that sort of thing. So, I mean, there's always, almost always a yield difference between reds and greens, but this year I think that's wider than normal. So the reds performing better, greens performing worse. And the other thing, just before I get to the reds, is on the green lentil side of the market. Again, were seeing those starting to come off the harvest lows. And part of it is, or a good chunk of it, I think, is actually that the overseas buyers had been running on fumes in terms of supplies. There had been nothing available from last year's crop and so everybody's cupboards were bare. Now they're restocking pretty aggressively. They don't want to get caught again with that and so on. So you have a bit of a combination of this strong export demand and kind of disappointing canadian crop. The production will be up from last year, but not as much as people were hoping. And as much as I think as the market needed reds, it's a lot more clouded or cloudy or whatever word you want to use. And the reason is, again, part of it is canadian yields of reds doing better. But we also are dealing mainly with the indian market and the turkish market. And the turkish market has been very, very quiet.
Even last year they were buying more from, well, they weren't buying much, but what they were buying was more russian and kazakh lentils. And so they have been taking those. And then also you've had like two very large australian crops in a row, and their lentils are almost all reds. And the latest forecast is for another near record crop that will be started to be harvest, I guess maybe early December or so. Okay, so they have a very large red lentil crop coming as well, too. And so there's questions about some dryness there as well, too. So I don't want to, it's not a done deal, but regardless. So that's a bit of the picture for the red lentils. So again, we talk about coming out of these harvest lows, and I think greens are coming out of it quite nicely. Reds are going to struggle, I think. So maybe there's some upside in reds, but it's going to be pretty modest, I would say.
[00:30:08] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:30:08] Speaker B: So can I predict the future? No, but based on some of the signals that I'm seeing now, know, you might see a couple $0.03 more at some point in this year, but it might struggle to get beyond that. So whats some of the upside for some other crops versus red lentils? So again, cash flow wise, its going to struggle, I think.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: Yep, fair enough.
The red lentil yields that I was privy to see and stuff, they did pretty good. It was pretty solid. So for many. Yeah, but, okay, great. Anything in regards to so the yellow pea market, not that it catches fire this fall, but everyone's got their hand up. I want to buy yellow peas. All the buyers, I want to buy these things and move them seems to have settled down a little bit. Now.
What are you seeing for yellow peas? Are we getting more excited about India in the future there? Maybe Orlando? Yeah. Where's your head at on those yellow peas?
[00:31:14] Speaker B: They're kind of like the red lentils, I would say. And they're, they're very vulnerable, actually. So, yeah, they may want to be moving yellow peas right now, but, you know, not at prices much above. Not at prices above $10 a bushel. Right. So, so that's, that's kind of the picture so, you know, we really rely heavily on India and China for that business. And so it's, it's vulnerable, it's risky. There's, I'd say, you know, with India keeping their zero tariff in place, I'd put that at about 50 50 odds right now.
So it's supposed to end at October 31. And so, you know, if they extend it, I'm saying, you know, you got about a 50 50 chance of them extending that. And even without it, or even if they do keep that on, India has really slowed down its buying. Like they bought a whole bunch when that first got dropped, and then it's really slowed down. So the pricing doesn't really work all that well into India anyway. So that's what's keeping a lid on canadian prices because indian prices are here and canadian prices are here. There's not much, there's not much ability to move those. So that's kind of the situation there. And then in China, Russia has been, I mean, their imports have been dropping off, too. And Russia has been kind of eating our lunch there. So, you know, it's not to say we're not going to move any, anywhere, but compared to earlier expectations, you know, when we first thought about India buying yellow peas again, it was kind of, all right, we've got these two superpowers in there. They're just going to demand and whatever. And kind of that kind of fizzled. And again, we'll see some good movement now at harvest time. You know, it always does this bit of a move, but I think a lot of those have been bought and were bought back in the spring already. And so there may not be a whole lot more buying now, you know, filling some vessels, I guess, here and there, that type of thing. But I'm kind of nervous about that market, too.
[00:33:16] Speaker A: Yeah, it slowed down here in my backyard. It was really exciting. Late August, 1 week of September, you know, elevators filling two or three trains. And then once those got booked up, everything kind of slid off again. And now were starting to see some November bids, which are surprising me, but theyre at the prices or slightly below where weve already sold.
[00:33:38] Speaker B: So until we see, were always watching prices. Thats one of the things that we do is we watch prices in India, for example. And until we see those start to turn higher, its going to be higher. Its going to be very hard for canadian prices to move higher as well because you need their desi chickpea prices have done that. But the yellow pea prices, which are the substitute, have just stayed stubbornly low because they're still sitting on large supplies of imported peas from earlier. They haven't used those up so they're still sitting there.
[00:34:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, cool. One final one for you.
You're going to love this one.
[00:34:16] Speaker B: Yay.
[00:34:16] Speaker A: So farmers are full on asking me about fertilizer markets and fall application of nh three and all these prices. And now they started to ask about 2025 crop plans and trying to find is there a crop out there that looks exciting for 2025 from a margin perspective? I know you're going to do your research on this later on this year, but the second week of September, is there anything that stands out for you for next year's crop?
[00:34:46] Speaker B: Well, we're actually, we are actually doing a bit of analysis. We're doing a special report next week. That's where we go looking at some acreage and some early wild guesses at next year's prices and those kind of things. We are actually doing something about that.
[00:35:04] Speaker A: You're in the thick of it. Perfect. Nice.
[00:35:06] Speaker B: So if anybody wants a free trial, you can go to leftfieldcr.com, get a free trial and get that report.
[00:35:13] Speaker A: There you go. Yeah, I like that.
[00:35:14] Speaker B: So, yeah, because we do have people asking us, they're wanting to budget for next year. So that's fair enough. So that's what we're trying to do in terms of some real potential. You know, the big elephant in the room is this chinese decision about tariffs. You know, if they do that. And so I think that could discourage some acres this next spring. So again, then if that doesn't, if it doesn't happen, then youll have fewer canola acres and so on. I think the canola market could be strong but thats the tipping point or the key lynch. Its a big one if youre looking for a fancy pants word, the linchpin in that market. So thats one that might turn favorable yet, especially as we get more domestic crush and us wants more and more of this for their renewable diesel and of course depending on who wins the next election. Gong show. Anyway, sorry, that was an editorial comment, wasn't it?
[00:36:13] Speaker A: I watched the debate yesterday. Last night, too. Yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah.
[00:36:18] Speaker B: My wife was watching and I was trying to hide in somewhere else that I didn't have to hear it. Anyway, anyway, I think the wheat market could be actually fairly firm next year. You know, we've been, we've been skating along just managing to have some, some decent or some decent supplies.
[00:36:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:33] Speaker B: But now there's questions about next year's or the, well, the winter wheat planting in Ukraine and Russia for next year's crop and so on. It's so dry, they may not get acres in. Of course, we try and kill that crop several times during the year. And so this is the first of that. So the wheat market could be firm as well, too.
Not mustard. Again, just, you know, just to be consistent.
[00:36:59] Speaker A: Not mustard. Okay.
[00:37:00] Speaker B: Since I've been talking to you. Not mustard, because you're still going to be sitting on big supplies of that. So how's that?
[00:37:06] Speaker A: Sounds good. I also kind of marked down green lentils as maybe a sleeper. I don't. We'll see, right? If we didn't get what we thought this year. We'll see. Yeah. Okay. All right, Chuck, anything else on your mind?
[00:37:20] Speaker B: Wow, I think you've. I'm feeling pretty drained right now. I got you left.
[00:37:24] Speaker A: Yeah, perfect. Well, thanks again for joining the podcast, and, yeah, we'll talk to you real soon. Sounds good.
All right, folks, let's talk about what is cool in crop marketing for this week.
Again, folks, some of this stuff isn't really that cool, but it's still important to talk about it. And I think I need to workshop the name a little bit. But the segment. But canola yields.
You the farmer. You know exactly what's going on in your farm. On your farm. You know what's going on with your neighbors, you know, the folks that you chat with on a regular basis.
Canola yields across the prairies. I just. I need you to just know that it's not great out there. There will be some bright spots for sure. And that's to come here. I think that canola is not harvested yet, but there is a production reduction. Coming to what degree, we don't know quite yet, but it's starting to get to the point here where the more yield I get, the more yield data that comes in the, you know, if the china issue wasn't hanging over our head, I'd be turning just a little bit more bullish here. Like, honestly bullish. So it, like, it's tough slugging out there, guys. It's frustrating, but it doesn't matter if I speak to an analyst like Chuck on today's episode or a futures broker that's talking to farmers. Heck, even the insurance folks that you talk to, they're starting to talk about it now, too, right? So it's. It's out there, guys. The yields are not great. Production is going to be down.
I know China's potentially not going to take as much here, but the end of the next summer, when we look at ending stocks to me, they're going to be lower than the 3 million tons that were reported from stat scan.
All right, we'll see malt barley.
This is an observation. Okay.
So as a maltster, you, you, obviously, you want to take care of your backyard, and then you start going further and further out to get supply. Now, I think I joked earlier this summer that we were going to ship our malt barley down to the US because the US was dealing with high protein. That's obviously not going to happen right now. But when you start to look at your maltsters and to see how far the prairie maltsters are starting to, to venture, like we're starting to see malt barley make its way from whatever the one in bigger is called. Now, it used to be prairie malt, but in their backyard, in their house, that malt barley is making its way to Alex Alberta, to rar malting. And I don't think those are the same companies. I'm pretty sure they're competitors. Let me know if I'm wrong on that one.
But a rar is out there looking for malt. They're looking behind every tree, every bush. They're trying to find this stuff.
They're going far out to find it. And it's super interesting because those farmers are going to get some significant premium for that. But hey, like, if you've grew some barley this year and it's a good spec, you know, don't just look in your own backyard for your. For homes, you know, you can look elsewhere. So it's really exciting to see that because, you know, you'll see later in eating your veggies. It's one of the kind of the things for us to focus on right now as well. The worrisome thing to me for malt barley, though, is, you know, if you're a line company, if you're Richardson or Vitera or whoever, and you want to put together a vessel of malt barley, you know, you have to compete number one with your domestic maltstere. So if they're back paying $7, which is the rumor out there, that they're pretty close to seven again, plus a little freight, you know, the line company has to be competitive in that space as well. And, you know, is there enough good stuff for these line companies to stick their hand up and put together a couple of vessels? Now, you know, we've harvested, you know, a bunch of barley, obviously, right. And plenty of samples to look at and go around. But some years, the line companies are a little shy on their sales. They might do a little bit of train here and there, but it gets very quiet. And I just wonder what the confidence level of the line company is to put together a malt program to ship overseas. There's got to be something there, but it just, it might be quieter than the normal. What else do I have here?
All right. This one's going to get me in a little bit of trouble, potentially. They probably don't listen to the show, though, so it's fine. But I got a message from my, from my g three buyer. Okay? And this is the message. It says, I'll quote a word for word for you. Large risk of further drop in canola futures slash basis if Canada must look for replacement sales for chinese exports. Please consider speaking with your grain buyer on mitigation strategies.
Okay, so why am I a little bit po about this one?
Well, g three, if you're listening, and I know I'm not doing myself any favors by saying this, but what mitigation strategies are you referring to?
Because the last I checked, the only thing I can do with you is a basis contract, a futures first contract or locking in a price on a deferred delivery contract.
Now, if you want to send out this message, please do so, but put in there at the same time, you know, reach out to us about mitigation strategies. We have tools for you to look at and consider, because right now, I don't think you have anything for us as farmers across the prairies.
So what are you trying to accomplish with this message?
You're trying to buy.
Come on. You're trying to buy some cheap canola. Right? I get it. You're a buyer. You got to do it, right?
But, you know, if this came out from like a Vitera or a bungie or even, who did I say here? Vitera, bungie, Cargill. Like, they would have something that you could attach. Like you could look at call options, you could look at puts, could do something.
And last I checked, you don't have any of that. But, you know, if this is the first message that spurs that and you say, Ryan, you're wrong, we have a whole toolbox ready to rock and roll, then great, you know, I, I regress. You know, I retract that. But you can't just come out here and throw that out there and then have us, you know, what are we supposed to do with that? Just phony up and sell the canola? Come on. Green peas are on the rise, folks. With all the bleaching issues across the prairies $15 a bushel and climbing. For those of you with good quality green peas, if you have high bleach, you may want to sort, send those peas through a color sorter or some type of other program to get them better quality. But don't sell them for 15 because it's a little bit bullish right now. And then yellow peas still a sell. You know, Chuck was on the episode this week and, you know, it looks like yellow peas are still a bit of a concern here on how India moves forward, if they're gonna implement the tariff again or what they're gonna do there. So if. Yeah, if you're in that ten dollar range or better on yellow peas, those are still. Is there anything else cool in crop marketing? You know, I still see wheat. Oh, man. Premiums or specials? I was laughing at Kyle Sinclair's twitter today because he's just getting frustrated with the word I special out there because, yeah, basis levels are the worst in eight years. And like, everybody, you guys all know this, right? Like, prices are, they're climbing a little bit. They're not runaway bullish. We're not all bowled up, but basis is getting better. The grain companies need this stuff. Could you imagine? If they're not going to ship canola to China, what are they going to ship? They don't just sit there. They don't sit idle. They're going to buy more wheat. Basis gets even better. Okay. So, yeah, yeah. Basis is going to get better in the wheat market, the way things look right now. And, hey, maybe we'll get lucky with a bit of a futures bounce here, too. But anyways, so wheat is a kind of not exciting, but it is improving and getting better. Oats are on the rise. There's a few things on the rise here. So it's getting just a little bit better. So let's leave it. That's it for what's cool and crop marketing this weekend. All right, folks, I've got Quinton joining me here, making his podcast debut on the what? The Futures podcast. Quinton, how's your week going? Man?
[00:46:36] Speaker C: It's going on so bad. It's definitely been busy since China and just in general, yields and hard starting to get underway. There's lots of phone calls, lots of discussions, lots of questions out there.
[00:46:45] Speaker A: Yeah, a busy broker. That's what you want, right? Busy futures broker.
Yep. Good stuff. So I've had some questions come in. A lot of farmers reach out to the show in regards to questions around, you know, brokerage accounts and so on and so forth. The one question I actually got in here, this, I guess, was last week now. But Farmer was wondering, so they have a corporate farm and they've got some elderly parents involved in the corporation and a sibling. Anyway, not everyone is in agreeance to be opening up a hedging account for the corporation. So the question was, you know, can this farm consider a personal account and what would be a watch out or a concern by doing a personal. Versacorp, right? Yeah.
[00:47:38] Speaker C: That's not uncommon. That happens.
Absolutely. Someone could open up a personal account and trade personally.
The thing to watch out for would be tax implications. So, yeah, it's all going to fall under your personal tax when you submit at the end of the year. So that's definitely the thing to watch out for. Beyond that, it's not that much. It's not that different. Very similar how you would go about opening the account.
[00:48:04] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I kind of joke about it all the time because, like my trading account, I'm really good at losing money. It's almost like my wife asks me at the end of the year, we're doing our taxes, and she's like, what's this negative again? I'm like, oh, don't worry, that's just my trading account. It's fine. It's all good.
[00:48:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:25] Speaker C: Tax wise, it might be helpful.
[00:48:28] Speaker A: That's right. That's right.
All right, Quinton, so tell us a little bit. Who do you work for? Where are you based out of, man? What are you doing every single day here?
[00:48:37] Speaker C: My name is Quinton. We're based out of Saskatoon. I work for JGL Capital, subsidiary of JGL, which is based out of Moose Jaw. Started that firm, started in the seventies, doing working with cattle mainly, and have just sort of expanded different lines of business throughout the decades, I suppose.
I work under Regan Espaceth, who's our business development fellow.
He was at RBC for 15 years. I worked with him for a few years and then we had the opportunity to move on and I decided to follow along.
We are brokers or futures brokers. We do have the ability to trade a lot of different things. Our business focuses mainly on the grain markets. So canadian grain markets. So we're focused heavily on canola, wheat, oats. Those are the main ones. Definitely take a poke at some of the us markets. Soybeans and corn, sure. But, yeah, definitely have a larger focus in Canada. Yeah.
[00:49:45] Speaker A: Nice. So based out of Saskatoon and so dealing with farmers across the prairie provinces, is that safe to say? Yeah.
[00:49:54] Speaker C: Yes. So Alberta, Saskatchewan is our main pool of clients for sure.
[00:50:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:50:01] Speaker C: Alberta Saskatchewan, Manitoba. Yep.
[00:50:04] Speaker A: Okay, cool. Um, I appreciate that. Yeah. When I think of JGL, I always think of cattle for sure. And then I've even done some of the, uh, kind of the cash grain side as well, through JGL. So lots of different things on the go, uh, with you guys over there, so that's great.
[00:50:20] Speaker C: Yes. Yep, yep.
[00:50:22] Speaker A: All right. So we talked about canola. You're based out of Saskatoon.
How are.
I guess if you're looking at this canola market, and I'm going to say lower yields is what I'm seeing, so I'll say lower yields. And then you got this China thing hanging over our heads, this probe into where are we dumping canola illegally into China, this whole thing.
How are you helping farms navigate this? Or is there anything top of mind on strategies that. That farmers can look at?
[00:50:57] Speaker C: Yeah, lots to unpack with those few comments. So let's start with the yields we are finding similar to what you mentioned there. Lower yields. I would say phone calls across Saskatchewan and Alberta, you're seeing somewhere between five and 20, maybe more bushels coming in, under five to 20 bushels, what guys were expecting. So it's kind of disappointing.
So there's definitely some room for what we believe could be some near term upside in that regard, just coming out of the production side of things and the suv side of things. So then you mentioned China. I mean, that's really a hard one to reign in and figure when you start to pencil out how things could go with that, I think there is room for downside and some surprises. I think any. Most news that they're going to come out with on that commentary, they might have probably won't help us. But I'm not that worried. I'm less worried about them taking, you know, reneging on any commitments there they're going to have right now.
With that said, if they do, if they are really committed to, you know, taking a swing at Canada. Yeah, I'm not opposed to a guy doing some. Some out of the money puts or something like that, or spending a little bit of money on puts that don't to be out of the money, do a little bit of protection. But for now, right now, I'm looking at things a little bit more with the bullish side of the market, how things have gone so far. And that applies to wheat, too, to be honest.
[00:52:33] Speaker A: Yeah. The wheat set up here is getting interesting. I'm not a big, like, I'm not a technical trader at all, but I'm just looking at these charts and looking at all this little demand from the grain companies and just wondering if there's. There's something brewing here. So fingers crossed.
[00:52:49] Speaker C: Yeah. You've seen weak cash prices. Kind of, yeah. Got a nice little lift lately? Last few weeks, I suppose so. Yeah, no, we're. I'm hopeful. We don't. We do technical trading, but not. I mean, we use it as a tool as well. But right now that thesis is mainly focused off of yields, production. Canadian production. Yeah, with wheat, you know, often you'll hear that, you know, we're not maybe a big player and as production wise, like, sure, but, you know, we're important exporter, so. Yeah, it's not like our markets don't matter.
[00:53:22] Speaker A: Yeah, 100%. No, it sounds good, man. Well, I appreciate you jumping on the podcast here, making your debut with what, the futures and. Yeah, I hope to talk to you again real soon.
[00:53:32] Speaker C: Awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
[00:53:34] Speaker A: Cheers. Perfect. And listeners, if you're looking for some contact info for quinton, hit me up here. Ryan. Atwiththefuturespodcast ca and get you guys connected. So awesome. Thanks, Quentin.
[00:53:46] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:53:51] Speaker A: All right, so the mail bag sponsored by pioneer seeds. Well, I want to thank Chris. Chris. To Chris's Trish.
I can't remember who asked the canola question, but we brought in chuck to answer a couple of them. Quinton also came in and answered a couple for us as well. But you can email your questions, Ryan, at whatthefuturespodcast ca. That's where you send them in. You can text them as well. I can't even remember our text line anymore. I haven't said it in such a long time.
1855. Oh, man, I gotta look it up again. But anyways, send in your questions and of course I'll bring in a expert if I need to. Um, sponsored by, uh, by pioneer seeds. And we're still. I'm actually meeting with them this week to figure out, uh, our next giveaways and stuff like that. Um, but anyways, keep them coming. We'll be drawing for something cool here at the end of September.
Alrighty. Now, you know what? Let's go over. Yeah, let's do eating your veggies. So, uh, eating your veggies. Uh, that segment, uh, or this segment, I should say, is brought to you by the lunchbox crew. Head over to Ryandini CA to check out how we can work together and collaborate. And you can also just go there, go to the lunchbox crew and you can just subscribe to the emails, the notifications there, and just catch wind of what's going on, on that side as well. So you can definitely go and check that out. A couple things here, kind of some bigger topics as well. But I. Life comes at you fast. So for number one, the 2025 crop plan, it is like a lot of people I chat with now. Of course, you heard it in this episode with Chuck.
He's getting the same thing. People are really getting dialed in to next year's crop plan. And I know you want to throw your hands up and say, geez, Ryan, we're still working on this one. I get it. I do.
But some of these markets are giving you some pretty good carry to consider for next year. You know, if canola futures today are 565, but next year they're 610 or 620, there's over a dollar a bushel there. Improvement from this year to next year. The wheat prices, same thing.
They're 50, 60, $0.70 better for next year as well.
There are going to be some pricing opportunities here for next year. In the very nearest future, might I have targets for all of next year already? I know that I've got. I know where I'm going to make some wheat sales here pretty quick, you know, not immediately, but pretty quick. And I've got my canola targets as well, you know, to keep building off the plan here for 2025. We already have some stuff done. We already have some wheat locked in at, oh, man.
I think, a buck ahead of where the market is right now.
Just pulling up the spring wheat chart.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Over a buck, a buck and a half, almost higher than where we're at right now. So, you know, like, it's. It's one of those things, folks. I know it might be a bit frustrating for you, but just getting that 2025 crop plan, just pencil it out. You don't have to, you know, it doesn't have to be ink quite yet. You can still pencil it out. Number two.
Oh, man, this is. I don't know. You guys might roll your eyes at this one, but the canola is very, very dry out there, right? So some of you are harvesting, you know, 4%, 5% dry canola. Now, we've had a bit of moisture across the prairies. You know, go ahead and make sure that you take advantage. Get out there, pull off some wetland wetter stuff. Right. And make sure you blend that into some great 10% canola. All right. I know that it's. It's a bit of a silly one coming from me, but, you know, I do see people that have a bunch of four in the bin, and then they wait till it's nine again, and then they. They give her. Just go and get some moisture so that you can blend and get that canola to a proper spec. There's nothing illegal about it. There's nothing wrong with that. Okay? You're just getting it to spec.
All right. And my third one, again, 2024, is arbitrage year. Arbitrage opportunities. And so, accurate grain samples. Number one, your tail end of harvest. Some of you already done, but accurate grain samples, I hope you've been doing that all along.
But have you. Have you ever considered getting your samples checked by a third party like sgs? Now, they aren't a sponsor of the show or anything like that, but, you know, back in my consulting days, what I would tell farmers is, I would say, we're going to get your samples. We're going to distribute your samples to your favorite buyers, then we're going to distribute samples to those with the best price.
And then if we get a whole bunch of discrepancy in results where grade pattern for the same samples coming back with three different scenarios, well, then we're going to take that sample, and we're going to send it over for third party grading. So, I used to open up, like, a house account with SGS, and there was another one as well. I can't remember the name. And we would send those samples and pay the whatever it was, 2030, $50 to get it graded, depending on what you were looking for. Falling number was a big one back in the day.
And then you'd have a certificate that you can choose to share or not share. You've paid for it, it's yours. But if you get the certificate and it shows a better result, you can share that, and for some reason, if it doesn't, then you can shred it and move on.
But I was just thinking of Jason the other day. So, Jason, poor guy, he's got green peas, and he's done the right thing. He submitted his samples to 1234 different entities.
One came in at 13% bleach, one came in at 3% bleach for his green peas. One came in at 5% bleach, and the other one came in at 10% bleach.
Now, for those of you following along at home, that it can be a discount as high as $6.25 a bushel is what they're telling me.
Pretty severe. That's the discount. Okay. It's aggressive, right?
But if they grade a 3% bleach or 5% bleach, no discount.
So how do you take a load of those peas and ship it right? So the more results you can get. And if you get that certificate, it could help someone out like Jason in that situation.
So a little bit of different for eating your veggies here for this week, but still, three things I thought, you know, I wanted to mention. All right, folks, if you've hung on this long in episode 44, I thank you for taking the time listening to the show here. Once again, if you found the episode useful, please tell a friend, a neighbor, a colleague in your local egg community. Spread the word. My friends. This is actually, I see this not weekly, but consistently.
Like, I hear and see this when you tell a friend about the show. Like the other day, it was a buddy telling another buddy about the show and then realizing that the one was in the lunchbox crew. But anyways, like full circle, you know, I hear these stories and I get to talk to individuals and it's pretty cool for me to see when you guys spread the word. So I appreciate it. It certainly fills my cup up as well when you talk to your friends and colleagues about it. You know, we're not what the Futures podcast is not going to be, Elliot Friedman's 32 thoughts or the Joe Rogan experience with millions of listens. It'll never be that because it's western canadian agriculture, but it is really fun to see what is happening in the background here with numbers like we. It's really cool to see that how fast the listens come in now and from where. So I appreciate that. Of course, prices and strategies may change by the time that you listen to this. We record this, most of it's done on a Wednesday. And of course things can change. So everything take it with a little grain of salt. If you want to be a guest on the show, email Ryan at with the Futurespodcast CA or head over to the website. Ryan, Denis CA if you'd like to connect or sponsor, that's where you head to as well. So that's it for episode 44. Everybody. Have a safe harvest weekend out there. And remember, let's get those, those wet canola bushels to help a 4% stuff out. All right? Okay, I'm up, folks.
