Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Is spring week going to $12 a bushel for prairie farmers? What happens to spring wheat when a major event comes around and impacts futures? We're going to go and take a little history lesson here, review some past years. We also have Eric and Lloyd Dick from Brett Young and what I will call a very, very honest and cool conversation about business. So let's get into that and so much more. Episode 135 coming at you right now.
Hey folks, welcome to the what the Futures podcast, your quick guide to better farming decisions.
Alrighty folks, welcome into episode 135 of the what the Futures podcast. Of course, my name is Ryan. I'm the host of this bad boy. And of course we're in the UPL booth here each and every week.
Well, not every week because we are going to be at Egg in Motion here in, in just a couple of days, right? We're going to be hanging out at Booth 427 with the great folks over at UPL. If you want a cup of coffee. Strange how that ties together, but they've got coffee for you in the morning, they've got cold drinks for you in the afternoon. Happy hour starts at 1:30. And if you want to get your hands on one of the great limited edition T shirts that we're going to be giving away here to you, the dedicated listener, that's what this is all about. All you have to do is say, hey, where's Ryan? And that will unlock your, your T shirt, your limited edition T shirt. People try to, they try to clean us out. There was the first year I did this, it was myself and one other person helped me out. And I forgot you had to protect your stuff. I forgot that you had to, especially when you have cool stuff that you have to kind of protect it. So we got cleaned out early that year. We changed it up a bit last year just to see, you know, who listens to the podcast. If you do, maybe you get something. But this year we're gonna, we're gonna have those shirts set aside for the dedicated listener. And, and if we get people that just pop in, I'm bringing a microphone and a karaoke speaker. I think we'll get them to sing karaoke. I think if they karaoke their way through a song, you know, maybe that'll unlock a T shirt for them. So come say hi. I'm excited to hang out with everybody here at Egg and Motion in just a few days. Now, I have not mentioned this yet on the show, but this great hat, Quinn Fletcher designed this hat for us here for. For the 2026 edition. These hats have a very important message on the inside. In the back, Quinn put go, farmers, go. Which is. Which is just awesome as well. The farmer goes crisis line, the help line. If you're going through a tough moment, if you're going through a tough week, you want to talk to somebody. Phone numbers on the inside of this hat. 1-866-FORMS01. That is printed on the inside of this. And I would take it off, but it is steamy in the studio tonight. It is humid. It is steamy. If I take it off, it's just going to be a mess. So we're going to leave it on, but it's still there. It's a very important number. Now, I forgot to mention is that when you come and grab a hat, that unlocks a $15 donation to the CCAW, all right? The Canadian center for Agricultural well Being, those funds get used to support the farm crisis line. So you come grab a hat that unlocks a $15 donation from UPL.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: What?
[00:03:32] Speaker A: The Futures Podcast to the CCAW.
Come help us hit our $10,000 goal to get a hat. Come say hi, Come chat with your UPL rep. Maybe you want to talk about teleron. You know, maybe you want to talk about wave and bio stimulants. Maybe you're interested in herbicide stacking. Come say hello, grab a coffee. Great way to start the day. Oh, I love that they have coffee there.
And then, of course, later on, grab a beverage for happy hour, grab your hat, grab your T shirt, and we got more. We got more than just T shirts. We got more swag there. So don't be a stranger. All right? Come help us raise some money. Unlock that 15 donation by grabbing your hat. We have kid sizes this year way more than past years. Even in their T shirts. We have kid sizes there as well. I remember when Aiden walked up, Aiden and his wife, beautiful family. I think maybe if I'm getting this right, three or four kids and we outfitted the entire family. I'm not just here like, hey, here's a T shirt. Sorry you got to fight about it. No, you come to the booth. We're going to gear up everybody in your family as best we can with these shirts, all right? We want everybody sporting these shirts. And I tell you, I had a big smile on my face when Steph sent me a picture.
[00:04:45] Speaker B: And her.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Her little guy was taking school photos in the fall in September, and he was wearing his what? The futures T shirt for school photos. So very, very cool.
All right, speaking of, of kids here, it's, it's, it's been an interesting summer when it comes to the weather and everything going on. So we're, we're a big camping family. We spent last week in Drumheller, first time camping, actually second time camping in Drumheller, but the first time at the, the Koa Dinosaur Trail I think is the name of the campground. It, it was great. Some poor kid puked in the pool when it was really hot out. Other than that though, we did have a great trip. We have a very social 5 year old. Wilhelmina is extremely social. She loves making everybody is her best friend. I think I've been introduced to about 73 new best friends this summer. She's very social. So we take the kids aside and we're like, okay, it's great, go meet people, have fun, make friends. But, but if you're going to be offered a snack or something, come and loop us in at that time. Don't just take food or go and help yourself. Come loop us in on the snack conversation. Because last year we're camping at Old McDonald's. And I'm looking across, there's our campsite and then a little bit further down, maybe three, four stalls down, there's the best friend's campsite. And I'm looking across and I just see, you know, these four little girls, my daughter's in the mix and I'm like, what are they, what are they doing? And I just see like spray this mist that they're spraying and they're spraying it in each other's mouths. And I'm like, what, what the heck is going on here? I run over them like, hey, what's going on? They had some liquid candy thing. Thankfully it wasn't a drug or anything like that, but some liquid candy thing going on. And I looked at my turn like, hey, like you got to tell a, tell a parent what's going down here. Like that was quite frightening. So I'm at the farmer's market this week and of course the mosquitoes are something, right? And so I'm walking through the farmer's market and this lady says, sir, we're testing out, we're giving samples. We have a new mosquito spray. Do you want to come and give it a try?
Well, anybody across? Like we're going through mosquitoes Armageddon here. We're trying everything, right? Like I'm putting a little deet in with my coffee in the morning just to see what that does.
So I've got this lady on no label on the bottle.
And I'm like, well, what are we talking about here? Like, what's in it? She's like, well, I don't know. We put a little bit of lemon and maybe some thyme in there. And I'm like, wait a second. Are we marinating or, like, what are we doing? And she's. I don't know. She lists, like, four things. Well, without hesitation, I'm like, yeah, spray it on me. Spray it on me. Spray it in my mouth. Spray it in my eyes, like, in my hair. Just cover me in this. And then my daughter looks at me. She's like, tugs on the. On my shirt. She's like, dad. And I'm like, yeah. She's like, you said we weren't supposed to be doing that. You said you couldn't go to strangers and just have them spray the stuff in your mouth. And here you are being just doused in this homemade mosquito repellent. And news alert. It is junk. It did not work, but I made it home safely. Yeah. You know, family lessons coming, Coming all around. So that's my positive moment for this week. Also, my brother, he doesn't normally vacation in Phoenix, Arizona in July, but he's in Phoenix, Arizona right now, and he was going to get some stuff sorted out. He hasn't been feeling good for the last year, and unfortunately, it's. It's, you know, it's kind of disappointing that, you know, in Western Canada, there are big waits and delays to get answers. And this was serious enough that he wanted some clarity on what was going down. I'm not going to go into the details, but he got good news. All right? He got good news, he got peace of mind, and he's got a plan now moving forward. It's unfortunate that you have to take those steps and go and out of pocket and do this, but, you know, at the end of the day, being under 40 years old like my brother and having the means to go and do this, why wouldn't you. Why wouldn't you go and tackle this? Because, you know, get ahead of the darn thing as fast as you can. Right? So he got good news, and that's a very, very positive moment for our family here this week. All right, so I've got Eric and Lloyd Dick with Brett Young making their podcast debut. Never been on a podcast before. So what the futures getting that exclusive interview. Eric is the current CEO of Brett Young, and Lloyd is the past CEO and current board member. All right, and so Lloyd being the senior dad in this conversation, Eric being the son, I'm just really happy with how the interview went and where we went in the conversation.
[00:09:52] Speaker C: The.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: These guys are just a couple of beauties and it just, yeah, it, it, you know, gives me, maybe inspires me a little bit, you know, seeing other entrepreneurs, business folks out there and what they're doing. But some great quotes in this one, some great knowledge and insights, and I hope you guys enjoy it. So we'll get to that here in, in just a few minutes. But just a great, very happy that those guys were able to join me here from their busy schedules. So before we do that, though, I want to, I want to go down the path of crop marketing because let's just check how I'm doing here with podcast prep in the summer. It's like being away from school. Like it is, it's a little, it's a little bit weak. Oh, I didn't ask you to subscribe to YouTube yet. So if you want to do that now, go ahead, subscribe to, to the YouTube channel or wherever you get your favorite, wherever you get your podcast, your favorite platform.
And you can also join the email list. Ryan, Denis, ca. If you've been waiting to do that, I would encourage that you go in and do that sooner than later. We have some things coming that you may want to be in the know on. All right. Okay. What else do we got here? Oh, cup of coffee. I did have Chuck Penner on earlier this week, so if you want to go check that out.
Of course, Chuck, absolute gold on the show all the time. And, and another good one here earlier this week. You see this, folks?
Sweat just dripping, dripping down my face. I'm gonna, I'm gonna come out of this and I'm just gonna be down a couple pounds. I am trying to stay hydrated, but yeah, just leaking here in studio tonight. Let's get into crop marketing here. I, I actually in my notes now, I call this my crop marketing monologue. We've got. I did a, some just quick background here and quick research. You know, that's how we're rolling here in July.
But you know, we had a huge update in wheat.
All right, we had a huge update in wheat today. Very, very good. Very nice to see. But the first thing I'd like you to do is just go and pull like a longer term chart. Go out like 15, 20, 25 years, go a little bit further down.
And if you want to feel like insignificant for a moment, go and take a look at even the wheat rally from earlier this spring. Go look at that guy and where we're at today. And just if you want to feel a little insignificant, go take a peek at that. I was meeting with some farms today and I was like, guys, this is all really exciting. I'm very excited. But by the way, here's a 25 year chart and here's where we sit, right? You look at it, they're looking at, they're like, Ryan, we're at the, we're, we're at the bottom. We're towards the bottom. I'm like, well, five is probably the bottom, but yeah, we're not, we're closer to the bottom than the top. All right. Or, or a few interesting points on the chart. I don't want to get you all bowled up here, but yet, you know, why not?
You know, at this time, like I, I think that my crop marketing plan, when, when a war happens, you start to adjust your plan a little bit. You start to tweak your plan because, you know, some people may have had the war penciled and I didn't. But you start to adjust things, you know, as, as these events happen. And my crop marketing, you know, the lunchbox crew guys can kind of attest to this. We've been a little bit picky in our crop marketing last couple months here. Like, we've been very picky and we've been very quiet on, on a lot of things. So I don't want to sit here and say, let's go play riverboat gambler and throw caution to the wind and just let it fly. But yet there are some interesting things here that give me, you know, have me looking at the markets a little bit, you know, sideways and saying, I wonder, I wonder what this is going to do. I wonder what the, how this is going to play out. And so for wheat right now, but Kansas wheat was up 40 cents today.
Like phenomenal gains as of recording here this evening, we're down a penny. The December contract's trading at 7:31. Now we have our high here of what, 7:65, 7:70 from back in mid May. So we haven't made a new high for the year quite yet. It's interesting. It's interesting and it's good. Now, you know, if you take a spring wheat chart and go back 20 years, you're going to see we're a little bit lower here on that chart. From a trend perspective, if you go and look at the Kansas chart and blow that guy out, you're going to, you know, say, well Ryan, we're, you know, maybe we're towards the middle here of the chart and yeah, you'd be right with that. My thoughts around wheat right now is that we do have a change in technology or a change in strategy that has occurred and something that was not achievable in the last four years from the Ukraine side of the war has been unlocked. Something new has been unlocked and is now available to, for, for them to use and to weaponize and to change their tactics. I was reading an article from, from CNN here this evening and basically the drone technology that they have now is allowing, allowing them to go and attack further out and go and attack, you know, Russian boats in the, in the Sea of Azov. And I wish I knew what the strategy was going forward from a crop marketing perspective, but it seems to be a new technology that is changing the strategy, causing the world's largest weed exporter to have to adjust, maybe change how they're approaching things. You know, what does that mean? What does that do here in the short term, long term?
I'm not sure markets will fix themselves, logistics fix themselves over time, but we have to go and figure that out. And even now I don't know if the strategy was for, you know, we're going to hit 120 boats here in the, in a week and then back away like I don't know.
But it is a change in strategy. Now if you want to go back here, a little bit of a history lesson, let's go all the way back to what 2014. 2014 is when Russia starts that effort to.
Yeah, it was during the Olympics, right or right at the end of the Olympics or something like that. But they go in and start that offensive to annex Crimea and the price of spring wheat goes from $6 to $8 in a span of approximately three months. Not quite, not quite three months, but from six to eight in the span of three months. I didn't look past that because I want to move over now to 2022 when this started.
But the price of spring wheat, February 24, 2022, that's when we want to go back to. It goes from $9 futures. Can you imagine that we were already at dol before this war broke out because you know, we had food security coming out of COVID times. Food security was a big thing, you know, getting more supply on site. And then we also had the drought of 21 in the mix there as well. But we go from 9 to 14, that's February of 24. And then we're trading back at $9 by July of that Year, so, so lots of time, but also kind of short lived.
Now I can look at some weather events as well, some Russian weather events. I think 2012, there's an event that you can reference there and I can see when Russia is impacted that the futures moves for Minneapolis Spring wheat can range between 2 and $3 a bushel. Now again folks, I'm not saying that the price of wheat is going from $9 in your backyard today to $12. But I am looking at what has happened in the past when you've had a weather event, when you've had a war, war stuff kind of break out. And you know, it can be a bit short lived. Couple of months that it happens could be shorter than that. I told my farms today, I said, I don't know, I prepare to take some action here within the next week or two. But it may be a little bit different this, this time around in the background too. Like don't forget, you know, the price of wheat drops a bunch here while the, the Americans harvest their winter wheat crop. But we have a very small winter wheat crop in the U.S.
you know, we have globally farmers planted less wheat, right.
And we don't have the crop setup that we had last year as well. So I, I find that there's like a bit of support in the background. Like don't get me wrong, I didn't think wheat was dropping a buck fifty here in this last drop. I wasn't sitting here saying this thing's going down A$50.
In fact, I was feeling quite bullish when it was hitting its top.
Now I could still feel bullish and sell something. I sold a little bit. But anyways, I'm sitting here and finding reasons of support as well. So I want to take advantage of the spike, I want to take advantage of the pop in this market.
And by golly gee, I want to break even on my, I was going to swear there on my wheat crop in 2026. How special would that be that I could sit there, that you could sit there with your farm and break even or make money on your 2026 wheat. Wheat crop. We shout with a farm today. And they made the decision right at the very end that morning. They were supposed to go and plant oats and they said, we had a meeting and they said we're going to go and put in this wheat and we're taking a walk. We're going to walk away from oats.
700 acres of oats, guys. Not, not a small amount and go and put in the wheat. And today they said, hey, you know, maybe there's something that's going to pay off here. And hey, maybe we're even going to make a bit of money on our wheat acres here in 2026.
You have canola trading at 800.
You have wheat here that's showing signs of life. Basis has approved a bunch. The price of wheat today in Vegarville, Alberta, the price of wheat today was the same as where we were when futures were 65 cents higher.
You know, that's how much Basis has improved. Don't worry, they'll take it away from us as it rallies a bit. But just to put that into perspective for you, that that's what's out there. All right, Donald sent me a text today. He said, rand, I'm getting $8.50 for spring wheat in central Saskatchewan for new crop. Yeah, that's great, man. Because futures, again, we're $0.70 higher and that's the price you were being offered. So Basis has done some of the work now as well.
And yeah, I won't go down that trail anyways. So when it comes to your wheat marketing guys, you're getting, you're getting a little bit complacent out there.
Maybe that's a harsh comment, you know, maybe you're going to yell at me, at Amber, you know, bring it on. I see farms, you know, you're reading, you're getting absorbed in some of the, you know, the drowned out acres and the problems out there. And that's fine, you know, you can read that stuff. But don't get complacent.
All right, like be prepared here to do a little something, especially if you can check off profitability, check off a little bit of margin here. Start seeing your whole plan turn into a, hopefully a much more profitable situation overall because of the strength in wheat and what's, what that's doing for 20, 30, 40% of your acres. All right, I have a bit more on that for, for eating your veggies, but I'll, I'll park it there. Questions, comments around wheat, I'd love to hear them but you know, I am preparing to, you know, figure out how to, to maximize this, this spike. You know, I, I can't. I wish I could tell you it was going to be a, a $2 or $3 rally. I wish I knew.
But I'm going to be prepared here to take advantage of this. And as I told a farmer today, I said, hey, at the end of the day it's really hard to predict the top of this thing, but maybe we sit here and we let it run until it has a day of weakness. It could be tomorrow, it could be next week, it could be next month. But maybe you let this thing run when it pulls back, then you go ahead and make that sale. It's hard for many. Most farms don't like selling on that down day, but it. It does tend to work. Has in the past. All right, so in one sense that, you know, I don't want you to get, like, too rammy out there selling wheat at these levels. Certainly I like targets. I put some pretty. Some farms, you know, we put some pretty big targets out there today.
But honestly, we start to look at break evens number one. And sometimes.
Sometimes you need 10 bucks to break even on your wheat crop. So why not start with that? Anyways, I am feeling good about wheat. Canola. You know, we've traded this level just a couple of days in the. In the last three years. You know, the last year, I guess, you know, we have gone and traded this June 3rd and June 4th. Is canola just following the good vibes out there of the wheat market?
Maybe, you know, but it's got its own positivity around it that we've experienced this year.
It could be policy side that's been supportive. It could be, where the heck is all the canola from last year? It could be something around that, you know, it has tightened up better than we expected, and that's a good thing. And I think here with. With canola that, you know, we know, you know, like, the last time you had a shot at this was June 3rd and June 4th. I just remember the disappointment out there around that time because people were still thinking about their past sales.
But you know so much more about your crop now, and you know so much more about the story in western Canada.
And, you know, I sit here and I. When I look at.
When I look at what's happening out there, like, I even. I met with a farm today that I would say is flirting with some of the worst areas of the prairies, like 18 inches of rain.
And yet we can still go and figure out the path where we think our canola yields are going to be in the mid-40s.
So what I want to say is that you even go back to big drought years of 20, 21, like the average yield out there quite a bit higher than what people think. And now with the weather here, you know, maybe you can find reasons that weather may have a negative impact.
Too hot during canola flowering. I think right now my biggest concern is still the delay in the crops, but the forecast for me, I think there's enough moisture out there to keep this crop moving along again. I'm not an agronomist, but I'm not expecting a big decline in production. I think you could end up with the second, third highest canola production ever. Now, people are going to shake their head at that, so you're nuts. But I'm pretty comfortable saying that right now.
And that doesn't mean that I'm bearish.
It doesn't mean that I think this thing's going to fall apart necessarily. That's not what I'm saying. I think we need all that. All right. I think we need all that if we want to wrap it up with canola. You're, you're at the a spot where we spent a couple days trading this level. Maybe you haven't done anything yet. This is a great chance for you to do a little catch up sale. If you, if you want to get caught up and feel better about your situation, this is your chance to do that. This is also your chance to control your destiny like you can this week. You can go.
And I got a message from Ryan this, this earlier. Well, I guess this afternoon.
And he was looking at his put options. Yeah, like you could protect $800 canola for about a buck a bushel. And if it goes up, that's fine. It's great. You could sell it. You could sell your canola for that higher price. If it goes up, you could do that.
But if it goes down, you got her hedged at 800. I don't know, guys. You can control your destiny on that one. Okay, guys, let's, let's keep moving along here. That's my monologue for today. All right, I want to move it along here. I'm going to be hanging out with Brett Young on Wednesday, July 22. That's booth number three, three four. Just look for the really nice canola, man. Just look for the nice canola and the alfalfa. That's where it will be. I would say I hope they're excited to have me there for the day, but I'm probably more excited because on my bucket list is to go and dine at the damn smokehouse. And I just realized the other day that that is the food truck that they have in the booth this year.
So Brett Young, challenge accepted. I'm eating everything from that. From that food truck. Of course, Brett Young's got a great happy hour as well. And come talk crop markets. Get your T shirt Again, where's Ryan? To get your T shirt.
And we're gonna do 8am we're gonna do. So we're doing cup of coffee two mornings in a row. Trent Clarenbach's gonna join me in the Brett Young booth, and we're gonna do a second cup of coffee next week. Me and Clarenbach. So looking forward to that. But Brett Young, Booth 334. Come say hello. Come talk markets. Hey, isn't that going to be cool that we're going to sit here in a. In just a couple days, and we'll be able to review your farm's crop marketing in with these prices? Unbelievable. It's going to be a great time. All right, let's get into the interview here with Eric and Lloyd. I had a lot of fun with this one. I want you to think about succession planning. I want. I want you to think about family relationship culture, culture of your business as well. And then the guys also talk about, you know, geopolitical challenges and, and maybe embracing that and some of the positive that's come out of that as well. So let's get into it. The interview here with Eric and Lloyd from Brett Young.
All right, folks, I've got Eric and Lloyd Dick joining me from Brett Young this week on the what the Futures podcast. Welcome to the show, guys. Making your podcast debut. How's it going?
[00:29:05] Speaker C: Hey, Ryan. Good to be here.
[00:29:07] Speaker B: Thumbs up.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: All right, guys, I want to start off here. Eric, I want to start with you. I want to talk about family legacy here just a little bit, and I want to ask, you know, what's it like stepping into the CEO role of Brett Young as part of that third generation transition? It's a whopper to start us off.
[00:29:27] Speaker C: That's a. That's a big one.
Great question. You know, I guess in order to answer that, I have to share a little bit about my experience, experience in.
In family business. And, you know, for me, I grew up in family business as a way of life. It was something that we talked about around the dinner table. It was something that, you know, Lloyd was always immersing me in, whether or not I was aware of it or not. I remember there were times where we would have key customers that were visiting from Germany, and they would just be staying at our. At our home for the weekend. Of course, it was an international visit for them and maybe a bit of a trip, but at the same, you know, same time for us, it was exposure to different aspects of the business internationally. You know, when we were kids, Lloyd would often take Us around Brett Young's different seed plants. And I remember quite fondly, it would be Saturday morning, Lloyd would wake up and he would get me and my brother and we would drive to Robin's Donuts and we'd stop off at Robin's Donuts, pick up a dozen donuts, and then we'd go into the seed plant. He would set us up with a bunch of different types of grass seeds and forage seeds. In the dockage room, we'd have all these different manual seed toys that we would play with. And he'd park us there for the better part of four hours while he'd be off working. You know, these were things as a kid I looked forward to, but I didn't realize that. Yeah, it was exposure, obviously to the, to the company. So, you know, I, hey, I would say just generally speaking, I gained a lot of values from my exposure to the company. You know, hard work, dedication, honesty, integrity. These were all things that I found were key to our customer relationships and the partnerships that we, that we built and have built over the many, many years we've been in business.
You know, I would say when I stepped into the CEO role, there's, there's real pressure that comes with leading an organization.
And you feel it like you feel that weight on your shoulders. At least I know I did when I stepped into that role. But it's, you know, it's something I've learned to embrace. I feel that I'm very privileged to be given the opportunity to continue building on my grandfather and then, you know, my father's life's work. And you know, really fundamentally our goal is just to deliver valued seat products to our customers and they, they ultimately make the decision as to, as to how long our 90 plus year business continues.
[00:31:57] Speaker A: Awesome. Awesome, Eric. I, I appreciate that context and, and insight. And you've done it, you've done a little bit of everything, right? You've kind of done it all with, within the business, like many, you know, farmers and, and their kids coming up or taking over from mom and dad where they have to do a bit of everything. You also kind of dove into every part of the business, right?
[00:32:19] Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah. I, I was an unpaid warehouse worker for an extended period of time in my youth. Yeah, I think, I think renumeration was Robin's Donuts at that point in time. You can tell I'm dating ourselves a little bit because it'd probably be Tim's nowadays. There's not, not as many of those Robbins locations around.
[00:32:38] Speaker A: I remember some, some good Robbins Locations. Yeah.
[00:32:42] Speaker C: There you go. You remember them. That's great. Well, I guess for a period of time, I worked as a summer student when I was going to university as the general manager of Custom Pollination. Have you ever heard a more inflated job title than that?
What it really means is I was taking care of leaf cutter bees. And so I managed a leaf cutter bee operation that was running out of our Winnipeg facility.
I worked as a regional account manager, a sales representative. After my undergrad degree was completed, I did a stint up in the Peace river region for a couple of years, more focused on seed production. So, yeah, I've covered a lot of different roles and responsibilities inside and outside of the company.
[00:33:29] Speaker A: Awesome. That's really, really cool. We have Lloyd here from nap time and vacation time. But I want to bring you into the conversation now. Lloyd Farms are going through, you know, a time here of, of transition. We have, you know, all the statistics are out there. It's a massive undertaking here across Western Canada. And not just Western Canada, but I would say across North America, probably globally as well. But farm transitions, do you have any, like, advice or learnings to share? Like, your perspective is, is very unique, but also relatable?
Well, I'll bring you in with that one.
[00:34:06] Speaker B: Well, I think first of all, as Eric alluded to, is never stop talking about the business, Never stop sharing your knowledge about the business with the people that you think may be involved in the business one day. Obviously, when Eric's 3 and 4 years old with his brother and we're taking, going to the seed plant, that is one thing at the back of my mind. But the point that Eric makes is quite true, is that I made a point of constantly speaking about the business with my family, being open with about the challenges with the business, about the future of the business.
And when it came time that, hey, a possibility might exist for a family transition, you don't have just one way to do these things. These things can be done many different ways. I got the help of some professionals that helped me go through those things in a very constructive way. So that I looked at, really, there was a half a dozen different options and picked the one that I thought was best for, for our family.
Okay. And it turned out to be to work very well. We. We wrote down a succession plan on paper. I shared that when the time was right with Eric, but I shared it with my wife Jackie, and with the other shareholders at the time.
And it wasn't a secret plan hidden away in a drawer somewhere. It was something that was a living document. That I read, reviewed and referred to many times with the management of the company. It became something that.
It was probably the longest serving plan. It was probably 20 years from the time that it was drafted till the time was actually say, hey, we've implemented this and Eric now still has a copy.
I think it's a good guidelines for him and looking forward, but probably not exactly the way we did it, but it's certainly there. And I would recommend that anybody that's looking at transitioning in whatever business as a farm is, first of all, make sure your family knows about what your plans are. Share it with them, talk it, talk to them about it.
Enlist professional help to make sure that you've got something that is reasonable, realistic, actionable. And thirdly, when it gets time to implement or closer to implementation, you have to double down on your discussions with your family and with your friends and with your professionals to make sure everybody's on site, everybody understands what you're doing.
Your bankers, accountants, everybody must be included. So it was, it was not just my project, but eventually it came to include the professionals that supported us. It came to include management of the company.
And they were all key members at making this a success.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: Awesome. You know, I, I preach written plan for crop marketing, which is just a small thing.
[00:37:20] Speaker B: Right.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: But having a written plan, reviewing it, having it available, bringing in your shareholders and everybody in, in your life, reviewing this living document, I think that's just huge right there, Lloyd. So I really appreciate you sharing that. Now I want to turn our attention here to, you know, present day Brett Young, 2026. Like for the listeners out there, maybe they're a little bit unfamiliar with Brett Young, or maybe they, they just know, you know, part of the story. You know, what, what would be, I'll put this one to Eric, but maybe the, the quick overview of the company today. You know, the size, the scale, the business units, what's all involved and maybe why independence matters so much in today's seed industry.
[00:38:03] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, it's, it's interesting. I know one of Lloyd's dreams was always to work with his sons. It seemed that Brett Young, our organization grew rather quickly and because of that size, really. It wasn't until he was a director on the board that I was working directly with him from an advisory position as the CEO of the company. But throughout my professional employment, he was always senior and I was lower inside our organization. So we'd rub shoulders, but we'd never really work directly with one another. But hey, hey. So that's a bit of an aside, if you look at who Brett Young is today, we're really a production sales and marketing company and we bring differentiated genetics to the marketplace. So we consist of three business units. The one largest and longest standing business unit is called our wholesale forage and turf business. That's really a. We call it a high service wholesale business where we produce forage and turf seed. We would process it, we'd clean it in our facilities, we may coat it and upgrade those seed products at our seed coating facility. And then we would typically blend them specific to customer needs and they would be exported to 40 plus countries around the world. Our largest countries that we serve in those markets would be the United States, China, and to a lesser extent, Europe. Okay, the next business unit, our second largest business unit is we call it retail crop inputs where we'd be supplying Brett Young branded canola forages, soybeans, corn and ag biological products to western Canadian ag retailers who would then sell to farmers as well as operating in the northern plains states.
And then the last business, probably the least known one, which was started in 2003, is called Professional Turf and Reclamation. And in the PTR business, we distribute fertilizer, chemistry, seed and pretty much anything on a golf course that you would need to manage it that doesn't have an engine. Yeah, primarily to superintendents, but we'd also be dealing with sod farms and sports fields. Actually, just recently I was seeing a lot of emails floating around from our PTR regional account managers. They're quite excited about supplying the inputs to Commonwealth Stadium as well as CF Saputo Stadium for World Cup. So that was something that we were all quite proud of.
[00:40:37] Speaker A: Well, awesome. Yeah. Commonwealth is just down the road from me, so not far at all.
[00:40:41] Speaker C: There you go.
[00:40:42] Speaker A: Okay, cool. I, I know that you, you, you don't want to pick a favorite, but the, like the turf division, golf courses, that sounds like a really fun one, right? Like, I don't know, I don't know how your golf game is, gentlemen, but I love the golf course.
[00:40:58] Speaker C: I will, I will say, Ryan, they are the best golfers in the business. No doubt.
[00:41:04] Speaker A: Oh, sounds good. Lloyd. I'm coming back to you now. I need to, I need to know, I need to ask, like, how is the Brett Young. How is Brett Young evolved over the years? Like when you took it over from your dad, when, you know, that transition happened, how has it evolved? Even from, I don't know, as far back as you want to go, but over the years,
[00:41:30] Speaker B: when I first started the business, there was just two employees. There's my father and myself, we had a storefront rental on Roblin Boulevard in Winnipeg. It was an accountant's office in there. And where we were in a rental, there's now a daycare.
[00:41:46] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:41:48] Speaker B: But basically there was a telex machine in the corner. The father with a couple of other partners, they had bought a buying facility from Manitoba Pool Elevators in Peace river country of Alberta, which was a large metal warehouse that they used for storing bulk seed. They had a rail siding and a scale tongue scale. They were buying seed and shipping it to bulk unclean seed from farmers and shipping it to customers in eastern Canada.
When I was there, they had just finished installing a seed cleaning line for, of all things, creeping red fescue, which is a turf grass produced in the Peace river region. At one time, almost a couple hundred thousand acres a year of that was produced.
So we got into processing seed.
And when I joined, he asked me if I wanted to be in the business. And I said, well, I really don't know. I don't know if that's something I want to be. I don't know enough about the business. I, like Eric had spent some Saturdays working at Brett Young on getting paid to load trucks or do whatever. The business at that time was very labor intensive.
Everything unclean was bought in burlap bags.
Unclean seed was delivered in burlap bags.
I cleaned thousands and thousands of burlap bags on Saturday mornings. But after I was worked there for a year full time, he asked me if I want to want to build a seed plant in Winnipeg. And I said, yeah, I don't want to keep doing what I'm doing.
I'd gladly build a seed plant with you.
So we started the planning and in the next year we started construction of a seed plant. We bought some land where we're located right now on the outskirts.
We got the permits and, which is an interesting story in itself, but we got the permits to build. A year later we were up and running and we were cleaning seed there. So we had done that point. We had the two facilities. We had the one in, in the Peace river, and we had the one in Winnipeg. We started opening it up and there was 12 employees that we started with. And there was just the one business unit, which was our wholesale, forage and turf business.
And all the contacts that my father had made over the years were still with us. I was a manager of the facility and we hired another fellow, very well known, very well respected, very knowledgeable, a great man. His name was Lyle Parker, and he became responsible for the sales and marketing of all these seeds. I was a general manager. My dad was the president of Brett Young Seeds. Off we went. Demand was good. We were supplying a product people wanted. My father taught me, let's call it on his values.
And there was any doing business. And one of the values, he says, lloyd, if you ever had a problem, if you ever have a. With a customer or whatever it is, it's like that piece of paper on your desk, and that customer looks at that paper and every day he sees that paper on his desk, and that reminds him, you're a problem and your company's a problem. So if you got a problem with a customer, you correct it as fast as you can to get that problem off his desk. And that was one of many, many lessons that I learned over time.
I grew or grew up in that business with so many stories, and that's how we related to our employees and to the people that are around us about how we are going to manage this business. So one was, it was family, take care of the business, it'll take care of you. The other was, which is, I was fond of saying, and I still am, is either you're. Either you're growing or you're going. It became very evident earlier on that our customers were getting bigger.
The farms that produce seed for us were getting bigger. Everybody was getting bigger. And if we didn't grow, we wouldn't be in business.
So it became clear that we needed to have scale in order to serve our customers both domestically and internationally.
And so we reinvested the profits of the business to grow the business. It's a volatile business, much more volatile than grain markets.
Prices can rise and fall very dramatically. And so with a forage and turf business, it's. It's, I guess the easiest way to explain it. It's dirt to dirt.
So we, we grow the seed with contract with farmers in western Canada.
That crop can be hit by weather. Could be drought, could be too much rain, could be disease, could be a lot of things. But with directly, in fact, the supply of the seed available and the, or the timing or the quality of the crop.
And the same would be true, is true about demand if on turf supply, you know, largest U.S. largest customer for turf seed in the world is United States. If it rains where the people are in the United States, then they don't use as much turf seed in the spring.
If it's hot and dry, guess what, they're going to use lots of turf seed. So the dirt to dirt on the other side Demand can change quite dramatically.
So we thought we needed to have other options to stabilize the business to allow us to grow. We needed more than one leg to stand on. We wanted to be in businesses that were complementary. So the one that Eric explained, which was the, what we call the retail seed business unit that we market Brett Young branded seed to farmers in Western Canada, we started to go down that road. We started to expand our products from just forage seed to also for farmers with canola seed and soybean seed and corn seed. We would partner with other similar businesses to us, whether they were co ops or privately owned businesses, businesses that we could relate to and say that, you know, we can't be everything. We, we can't be everything to everybody. But what we can do is we can be really good at forage and turf and marketing to Western Canadian farmers.
Ultimately, the same principle applied when we went into the PTR business unit. Another leg to stand on, another business in the same geography, another business we could serve out of our warehouses. And that became the third leg of our business.
And over the years that has served us very well. Having three businesses, three different risk profiles that are all supported from the same facilities. That's how we focused on the growth of the business. Over the years. When we've seen opportunities, we evaluate them in very professional manner.
The other things beyond the sales has been we've also become a much more professional business from a point of view of both our management and the point of view of our, our systems and our controls and our business.
So we've gone through numerous computer programs, iterations of computer programs, but we continue to update using the latest technologies. And of course now there's AI and we're, we're exploring how we're using AI in our business.
So it never stops. You're not just growing your business financially, but you got to grow it in your systems, you got to grow it in your operations, you got to grow in your personnel. The personnel you have to have has to grow themselves. They have to become better at their job.
The business is not getting less complex, it's getting more complex. So all these, this the business and I'm very proud to say and the people been very lucky with the people that have been working at Brett Young over the years.
And they're professional, they've had. I've been lucky to work with so many knowledgeable, great people, but great people
[00:50:07] Speaker A: makes a great business and obviously some great hires as well and great collaborations and partnerships.
I have many follow up questions for you here, but I'LL try to narrow it down. But I also made a note here, like Brett Young has, and I hope I say this properly, but you know, platinum status went from being one of Canada's best managed companies.
Like how do you, how does that even come up on the radar or, or be something that you're striving for? Like, I, I don't even know where to begin with that question really, but it, it just, to me it's noteworthy that that that's there. It's on, you know, on the, on your website. It's a, it's a very important thing and I can sense the pride as well that you have in that. But like, yeah, I guess what does that mean to you?
Best managed company in that platinum status? Just. I got a bunch of other questions, so we'll just go do that one quick.
[00:51:05] Speaker B: Well, to me it's just recognition of all the hard work and the professionalism of the people that are managing the business.
There's no way Brett Young's not best managed if we don't have some of the best people available working for us, implementing their ideas, their systems in a, not in a collaborative approach. The business and the management is much more collaborative than it's ever done. Initially it was my dad who was, who was a president, CEO who was saying this is how, what we're going to do.
But over time it's gone to where there's no way one person can manage this business.
You have to have senior managers in each of their roles doing their job correctly and collaboratively with the other parts of the business. The way it's structured is that the operations, there's the operations, the accounting or administrative function of the business and the marketing. Those three areas serve the other business units, all the other sales business units. All of them have leadership teams. All of them work collaboratively with them. All of them make their plans, they have annual business plans. And we're coming up to our annual year. They'll have annual, the business plans presented to the board. We have a professional board with independent third party member people on it. That's where I sit. Like Eric referred to as a director and, and the planning, including all this into the business, sharing the profits of the business with our employees. It's all part of it. I was so proud one day when we started, we built this place on the perimeter and I remember there was a young couple that had come, started working husband and wife and they were having kids.
And it just struck me, I remembered, holy smokes, like people are now working here. They're building their families around this. This thing's got to work.
[00:53:12] Speaker A: No pressure. No pressure.
[00:53:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:53:15] Speaker C: Not just about you, Lloyd, but. But about them. And, you know, just adding to your comment about long standing employees, Ryan, we just had an employee. He's a general manager of our Winnipeg facility. He retired after 43 years of employment. Wow. Which is a pretty incredible milestone. We have. We actually have longer tenured employees in that we have. Our vice president of seed production and seed sourcing has been with us for 45 years.
I think he was one of the first hires that Lloyd ever made back in the day.
[00:53:47] Speaker A: Okay, Eric, I want to talk, and I don't know if this will be fair to you or not, but I want to talk about global stuff here a little bit. But do you remember when Brett Young kind of went from Manitoba, Western Canada to global? Like, I don't. You might have been a kid when that all happened, but, you know, like, when did it feel very global? Like customers across the world now, across the globe. Is there. Was there a pivot point or a moment when that kind of happened?
[00:54:18] Speaker C: You know, because the root of our business is the F and T business.
It's always kind of felt that way to some extent. Although, you know, we've always been serving international markets and, you know, F and T is primarily an export driven business, mostly selling obviously to the United States, China and Europe. And, you know, there are times where European customers will also be looking for us to multiply their varieties. But yeah, no, the global pressures that we feel in our business are always around us. And hey, you can look at the world we live in today.
There's a lot of geopolitical instability.
The two biggest ones that have certainly kept me awake at night have been tariffs and the renegotiation of. Of Kusman. You know, and then in addition to that, I'm sure, as your audience would be very informed on, you can add the straight of Hormuz as well to that mix.
So, you know, that creates obviously volatility in terms of fertilizer and fuel pricing.
But, you know, looking more specifically at a Brett Young perspective, we routinely inventory some seeds in the US but most of our production is produced in Canada and warehoused in Canada. Well, a year ago, we made the decision that we would position some of our inventories and at a higher cost of goods in the United States just to ensure that we had access to our key distributors. Because the worst thing that could happen is we're not able to supply them and we end up losing that shell space to competitor customers. Because once you lose that shell space, it's always difficult to get it back.
And it turns out the world that we lived in a year ago pretty much continued to operate business as usual with all our Kusma products flowing terror free back and forth.
And, and so hey, we, we, we made a call to protect ourselves from the worst case scenario, but turns out we didn't need to. And you know, in retrospect it was, it was likely the wrong decision, but I'm comfortable making the wrong decision as long as it protects against the worst case possible outcome. So.
[00:56:38] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah, yeah, a little risk mitigation there. Yeah, for sure, for sure.
[00:56:42] Speaker C: And yeah, you just asked about some of the other trends or geopolitical concerns that we might be paying attention to. That one's maybe more on the negative side, but I would say on the positive.
If you look at the Canadian markets, we have seen a dramatic growth in domestic crush capacity.
Just looking at some recent Canola Council statistics, I think the projections are to arrive at 15 million metric tons of, in 2026, only a decade ago. We're at 11 million metric tons. So I mean that's nearly a 40% increase over that time period. So that, that's, that's really, really positive news for the Canadian canola industry. And you know, I could also add that there's some other really exciting developments probably on the not too distant horizon. And you know, one of those is the clean fuel standard for Canada.
Yeah, clean fuel standards in Canada are also very impactful, obviously at reducing carbon intensity of diesel and gasoline. But they could be huge consumers of canola.
You know, I was looking at some of the stats and like a single renewable diesel plant with annual production of a billion liters would require about 2.5 million tons of seed.
So that's, I mean those are huge. That's big, huge numbers and it bodes very well for our domestic industry if, you know, clean fuel standards are legislated across Canada in a responsible way.
And you know, the one other comment that I did want to make is the adoption of AI technologies. I know Lloyd mentioned AI earlier and hit earlier in the conversation. I attended Seats Canada last week in Saskatoon. And the good news is I didn't get stranded there.
The airlines were close to stranding me there, but we were able to find our way back.
It's a harder place to travel to nowadays than it used to be.
[00:58:49] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:58:50] Speaker C: I, I'm personally very intrigued by the application of AI technology for seed grading, for purity and for germination. It's, I found it fascinating on some of the presentations about how you could be using some of this AI automated technology proceed grading, allowing your lab analysts to actually look at not routine situations, but one off situations and assess and really provide assessment in crucial situations. Yeah. And then so yeah, that's something that we're looking at in terms of adoption across our organization. We do have a seed lab with nine full time analysts so we'd be looking to potentially employ that to increase our efficiency.
[00:59:40] Speaker A: Awesome. It's. Well, AI is evolving so fast and it's very, very exciting and can be scary at times as well, but exciting and lots of things coming down the pipeline. Eric, you also mentioned there like, you know, our crush capacity in western Canada. You know, when I think of Brett Young on our farm, you know, we grow four crops, approximately half of our acres are Canola and we're very excited and knock on wood here, we've dodged some of the big storms out there, but our Brett Young Canola is looking phenomenal. The 7206 is looking really, really good out there. And, and, and we're excited, excited about, about the industry, excited about domestic CR crush and getting closer to the end users is always an important thing for farmers and that value add. So it's going the right way. So it's great to see. All right, guys, I want to come back here to this entrepreneurial spirit that you guys both obviously have in display. Is this something that has been passed down generation to generation or. It takes a special individual and farmers out there as well know, being entrepreneurs every single day takes a special individual to, to do that. Like is that something that you've always been comfortable with being an entrepreneur and, and you know, leading business and Lloyd, we can start with you and then we'll go to Eric.
[01:01:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess so.
It was, it's been my nature. I don't know the German saying, but it translates into an apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
So. My father was an entrepreneur. Clearly I'm an entrepreneur.
I think over time in the business though I don't think so much myself as an entrepreneur, but more as a professional businessman. I evolved over time as more systems and processes and things taken place. I'm very proud to be an entrepreneur. It's what the business needed at the beginning and what it needs now is kind of a different thing. We scale up. There's lots of exciting things happening in the business that are going beyond what the business is today.
So there is still those looking for opportunities while at the same time trying to be as Efficient and as good as possible as what we've been doing for a long, long time. But we're still out there, always looking for new partners, new products, ways to improve our business.
So I guess that's how I feel about it. I am an entrepreneur. Got an Entrepreneur of the Year award one time, so I know that's how people see me from the outside.
I view myself more as more of a seasoned business person that has been very lucky to work with a lot of great people. So that's how I view myself.
[01:02:45] Speaker A: All right, awesome. And kudos to those great individuals helping you along the way. Eric, how about your entrepreneurial spirit, you know, that you're getting for your dad and grandfather? Is that, you know, continue. Does that resonate or.
[01:02:58] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I feel that a little bit. Right. Like, I think as an entrepreneur, your glass is always half full to some extent. And you always, you always, you always see opportunities for growth. And you know, I know in our business we're really excited about the opportunity that we see in the, in the Canola markets. We're still, you know, a small single digit market share player and it's obviously a very, very large market. You know, we think we bring something different to that space. It's a space that's dominated by multinational companies.
You know, as an independent Canadian based company, we think we can bring choice, we can bring unique germ plasm that without our brand may not, may not have a path to the marketplace. Because as you know, multinational companies of course are very motivated to sell only their germplasm in their, in their respective brands. So, you know, we're agnostic when it comes to our, you know, where our germplasm comes from. And, and I, and I think that gives us access to some really compelling genetics that we can bring to market that is going to be meaningful to farmers across, across Western Canada. And you know, I, I do also think that there's value that, you know, the profits that are earned by Brett Young are reinvested in Canada and not a, not a foreign jurisdiction.
[01:04:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, 100%. And we had DLCs on the show, you know, a couple months back as well. But some of those, those partnerships and like you said, bringing that to, to the farmers, you know, having an avenue or a space to bring that out there to prairie farmers is, is super, super important. So no, I think you guys are, are doing some really cool stuff over at Brett Young.
[01:04:50] Speaker C: Great. Hey, and if I could throw one, one more plug in there on the topic of entrepreneurial, we're pretty excited about the fact that we've recently launched a new consumer turf brand. So we've all always been a supplier and packager for other third party brands. So that, that would, you know, those would be brands that you'd see in potentially in Walmart or Home Depot over the years. In a lot of instances that would have been, you know, Brett Young produced grass seed marketed by another company. Well, well, this year we have launched our own turf brand called Bill and Reg Lawn Company.
You can find that at Bill and Reg ca, if any of your listeners are interested.
But this allows us to directly participate in consumer turf markets through home improvement retailers. And you know, the, the pitch was really, I would say maybe driven by some of the, that patriotism that we saw develop during this time of tariffs and geopolitical disruption. So we really communicate that we're bringing high quality Canadian grown grass seed directly to store shelves. And you know, our inaugural product was even branded the Canadian Lawn Mix and it promotes supporting Canadian farmers as well as use by lawn care professionals, which is kind of a tie in to our professional turf business. But yeah, it's a new, I view it potentially as a new, a new business unit. And Brett Young, when we're able to achieve some size and scale.
[01:06:29] Speaker A: Awesome. And that's the entrepreneurial spirit within the company, you know, continues as well. So there you go. Awesome stuff. I got just one, maybe two last ones here for you. I wanted to talk about, um, and I hope I say this properly, but is it Cali. The Cali Dick Foundation? That's, that's, can you give the listeners just a little bit of, of background and just some of the initiatives you guys are working on or have worked on recently?
[01:06:57] Speaker C: Yeah. So in, in 2011, my sister was tragically killed in a, in a car accident.
And in commemoration of her and some of the causes that were, were meaningful to her, we formed the Cali Dick Foundation.
My, my brother is autistic. He has Autism Spectrum disorder. And Cali was always one of his biggest supporters.
[01:07:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:07:24] Speaker C: So the Cali Dick foundation has been focused on supporting people that are living often with developmental disabilities or intellectual disabilities.
And so that, that's a place that we have supported a wide array of different causes for those communities. So, you know, I happen to be a volunteer board member on an organization called dash.
DASH is direct Action in Support of Community Housing. It's a Winnipeg based organization, but it provides housing and living accommodations for people living with developmental disabilities. The Cali Dick foundation has routinely supported that organization. We've, we've certainly invested in some autism research with the St. Boniface Hospital foundation in collaboration with, I guess an Israeli university to try and understand Autism Spectrum disorder in, in greater detail.
And Lloyd, what, what was that other project, the Adore project that you were involved in?
[01:08:29] Speaker B: Yeah, that was just, that was as well. That was with the Health Sciences center in Winnipeg. It was basically tracking and prioritizing treatments for children a very young age for autism and developing a database to support, or evidence based database that would support the treatments. What's working and what's not.
[01:08:59] Speaker A: Well, just a great way to honor your sister, Lloyd, your daughter. Right. And the ability to keep the memory going. My wife and I lost our daughter when she was born. And I know for myself when I can be a part of something that continues to bring up her memory, you know, it helps in, in the healing and then the remembering and keeping those folks, keeping those people, you know, even more present in our, in our lives. So I, I, I do want to, you know, give kudos to you guys on, on that, on that project and the great work that it's doing across Winnipeg, Manitoba and the prairies as well.
[01:09:45] Speaker B: My condolences to you and your wife.
[01:09:47] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you.
[01:09:48] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:09:49] Speaker A: Okay, guys, we've got a bunch of farmers listening here to this episode. You know, Dr.
Experiences even your day to day.
Lloyd, we'll start with you. Do you have any advice for farmers out there that are going through these volatile conditions right now? It might be expensive with the straight of Hormuz stuff with fertilizer and fuel. You know, maybe it's geopolitical. Any advice, any, any guidance for those farmers going through this right now?
[01:10:17] Speaker B: Well, my only guidance that I would give is that don't make dramatic changes. Manage your farm the best you can, the way you've done in the past, the way that you know your farm better than anybody else.
Continue to manage it that way. Don't overreact. One way or the other, these things too shall pass. In time, we'll get into a more stable, predictable business environment.
It's bad enough having to try to predict the weather, never mind how it would predict the what other people are doing around the world and how. So that's what I'd say. Focus on what you can't control.
[01:10:56] Speaker A: Sounds good, Lloyd and Eric, last word to you. You know, you're partnered with prairie farmers each and every day here.
Any advice or encouragement to offer?
[01:11:09] Speaker C: Yeah, it may be similar to Lloyd's point, but I think leadership through fear and anger isn't leadership. You know, I, I, I tend to think that being constructive and, and working together is, is often what is going to, what is going to be lasting. You know, when I think about some of the relationships that we have with our, our key United States distribution partners, when there was threat of tariffs, a lot of these customers, they stepped up and they didn't buy less from us, they bought more from us. They said, we, we want to, we want to get that Canadian produced product across the border because not only do we want to support you, but we know that it's, hey, it's good value and it's, it's a high quality product. And you know, we're, we're one of the few, we're one, one of the most important regions to serve their market. Obviously, logistically, I think some of the noise that's out there is, is that it's noise. And, and let's not lose sight of the fact that there's, there's real relationships that exist between, between companies and, and those relationships don't go away because there's somebody in the White House espousing threats and, and anger. So. Yeah, yeah, don't forget that. Yeah, we, we still have, we still have friends both north and south. Well, south of the border, I should say.
[01:12:28] Speaker A: Yeah, you bet. Awesome, Eric. I really appreciate that as well. Gentlemen, thank you so much. I kept you well over time here today. So thank you so much for joining the what the Futures podcast and look forward to continuing our conversation. Will one of you be at Egg in Motion? Do you guys go to that show at all? Are you going to be hanging out in Booth 334 that during the week?
[01:12:50] Speaker C: I would love to be there. I was there last year and the year prior. Not on my calendar this year, Ryan. But tell me all about the happy hour when the time comes.
[01:13:02] Speaker A: I will be there.
[01:13:03] Speaker B: Eric.
[01:13:03] Speaker A: I am spending the entire day with Wednesday. We're going to record a live show that morning. And we were so impressed by the Plots last year we, we went and asked, can we hang out with you guys in 2026? And they said absolutely. So looking forward to it. I'll let you know. Weather looks phenomenal and I'm very excited to, to hang out with the crew there. So thanks so much guys for joining me. Have a great rest of your day.
[01:13:26] Speaker C: Fantastic. Thanks, Ryan.
[01:13:27] Speaker B: Okay, you too, Ryan. Thank you.
[01:13:33] Speaker A: Oh, man, I had a lot of fun with that one and I, I just love the casual nature of that conversation as well. So kudos to those two guys for making their podcast debut here on what the Futures Now Going back here to Egg in Motion. I am spending some time with John Deere as well. So that's a live on location cup of coffee if you look behind me, actually, right there, we've got the headsets, we've got the roadcaster. I am surrounded by gear right now. Not that it takes a lot to put up the, the studio in another spot, but for some reason it starts as chaos and then it kind of comes in and all fits nicely in a suitcase at some point. But doing some testing here and getting that worked out. But 8am Tuesday, if you're an early bird, we're going to do a live equipment announcement, a product release with John Deere, and they have set up an entire podcast studio for not just myself, but a couple other podcasts as well. Will be recording in, in the booth there.
And yeah, I, I'm pumped. I'm meeting with the AV guy on Monday. We're going through, through the setup and, and then I don't even know what we're launching. They won't tell me. I'm like, hey, can I get, like, I need to prepare here? I, I need to figure out how to ask a question. And they're like, yeah, you'll get, you'll get the info an hour before you, you hit record and go live.
[01:15:03] Speaker C: So.
[01:15:03] Speaker A: All right, there we go. So that's going to be a lot of fun. And of course, we appreciate John Deere's support of the podcast and also the Crop Marketing Made Cool conference. They have a big spot in that this year as well.
All right, eating your veggies here. For episode 135, I want you to do a little bias check. A little bias check. Think about you, what you're going through on your farm, how you feel about markets moving forward. Are you bullish? Why are you bullish? Are you bearish? Why are you bearish? What is your crop telling you as well? Check your bias, because if you're sitting here saying, man, things look good around me, I'm excited about price, maybe you should be taking some action. All right, so do a little bias check as we enter the second half of summer here. Also, number two, I want you to write down, we talked about this in the spring in the tractor cab, but write down your numbers. You know, what does this rally actually mean for your farm, for your margin, for your profitability? What can you do with that profitability?
Can you go and pay down some debt? Can you go in and invest in some farmland? Can you go and activate that money somehow, but write this stuff down, think about your farm, what's important for your farm business and zone in on that, dial yourself in on that. And if those numbers sit there and make you smile, it's probably time to take some action. All right.
And then lastly, I, I'm just going to throw the canola hedge in there as well. You know, like, I wouldn't do my wheat hedge here quite at this time. You know, that's myself. I, I wouldn't do it quite here in this space. But you're canola hedge, you know, you're trading a level that we've danced with just a few times this year. I don't know. Control your destiny. If you're getting a second opportunity, we can reference past years where we get a couple opportunities, you're getting another one. Don't let us slip you by. Focus in on your farm and what's important for your farm. Right, okay, well, that's it for this show here. I also want to give a shout out to Western Ag.
We've got a crop caster update coming up here in the next week or two, but go say hi to those guys at Egg in Motion as well. And if you're thinking about fertility fall, fertility planning, now is the time to start. Go and talk to those guys at Egg in Motion. Get a sense of what crop caster is all about and what their fertilizer planning can do for your farm moving into 2027. It's not go time for them yet. It's coming, it's coming. You can plan now. Get ready for fall and then get that 2027 crop off to a great start. Thank you, guys. Longer episode this week. I promise you I'm gonna be completely drained for Megan Motion. You're getting a couple short ones here moving forward, but if you like the episode, if you have any comments, thoughts, email me, Ryan at what the futurespodcast ca and of course share this with a friend or a neighbor. And also, I still have room if you want to join the futures text list.
We add people every couple days essentially, but I still have room on that list.
You just have to send me an email, say, ryan, I want to be in on the futures updates and we'll get you set up with that. All right, folks, for the what the Futures podcast, my name is Ryan and I'm out of here.
