[00:00:21] Speaker A: Hey, folks, welcome to episode number 14 of the what? The Futures podcast. I hope you're having an outstanding positive Friday.
I have a jampacked show today. Of course, every episode is brought to you by John Deere. And a very happy birthday to Mr. John Deere, born this week in 18 four.
I'm going to highlight this week that John Deere at most dealerships, they have what's called John Deere connected support. All right. There's an individual there that is able to help you optimize your John Deere Operations center. I know our farm has one. I know a lot of folks that I chat with across the prairies have an individual as well. The cool thing about this is when you optimize your operations center that plugs directly into harvest profit, which is your farm management cost and profit tracking software. And of course, for 2024 and 2025, it's tough slugging out there, folks. I can't stress enough how powerful these tools are. There's going to be opportunities in the future. There always is. So know your numbers, guys. Get your business plan down on, I was going to say on paper, but online in these programs, check out
[email protected]. And it's a great tool to help you manage these very interesting times. All right, just a quick nod to Toby Keith. Toby passed away earlier this week, so rest in peace.
I like all music, okay? I'm all over the map at one point. In my younger days, I was kind of a DJ. Not really a DJ. I played music at high school dances, weddings, that paid some of my bar tab in university. And anyway, so I love music. Toby Keith, there's a few records he put out in my college days that were certainly influential for me. And songs know I love this bar, red solo cup, just to name a few. And now as I approach 40 years old, what's that song? I'm not as young as I once was or something like that. Anyways, the bones hurt a little bit more. And when you have a good, fun weekend, it's a little bit longer to recover. So anyways, Toby Keith was one of those good ones out there. Positive moments of the week. My sister had a baby girl on Monday, so everyone is healthy and home, and our extended family gets a little bit bigger. So welcome to the world, little one. My second positive moment of the week, also close to my heart is we did a half bathroom Renault. Now for those that know me personally, I am not a handyman. My wife knows that. Now, we've been married since 2010.
But I did do the tear out of the half bath and I did install the toilet back and the lights and stuff like that. So I was in there, but we tore it out, replaced everything within a week. And definitely some heroic moments from me tearing out.
There were some challenges, but we got it done, got everything installed again, painted it looks great. And that's my second positive moment.
A few more housekeeping items here. I want to do a mailbag segment or send in a question so you can fire your questions into Ryan at Whatthefuturespodcast CA if you're just tuning in for the first time here, I spent my career as a crop marketing advisor or analyst, basically helping farmers make better crop marketing decisions. And of course, as I'm recording, I'm multitasking because we're getting some offers here on some grain for the farm. But anyways, so I spent my career doing that. I was a grain buyer as well. Anyways, if you have any questions about any of the content or any questions in relation to crop marketing or business, if I don't know the answer, I'm going to bring in a friend to ask it or to answer it as well. But if you do that, if you pose the question, you'll get entered to potentially win a trip for two to Nashville, Tennessee. This is the second stage of our contest, the first one you had to text in last month. Now we're going to get you to write a question. You can say, Ryan, this is anonymous. Whatever you want to do, put your name doesn't matter to me, but send fire in those questions. We're going to call it the mailbag segment brought to you by the folks at Pioneer seeds agency tower Farms, Jacob and Becky Boychuk, and of course, that p. 560 and l sitting on the shelf behind me, that is the Canola seed that you could win in the month of February. So by asking a question, you potentially can win a bag of canole seed and you get your name entered for this trip to Nashville, which we draw for later in March. All righty, so check that out. Chris Shanjo is our winner here in January, and I believe it was Brad won in December. So the good times keep rolling at the what the Futures podcast. Of course you can text in those questions as well to 1855-606-1889 and I got one this morning. Actually, I'm just going to attempt to read this, but this gentleman writes, ryan, thoughts from the road. I wonder if some of the bullish canole sentiment from producers is wrapped up in some disbelief or unwillingness to go back to old market levels. I know that's partly my problem. There's a bit of a question in there, but what I responded with was the five stages of grief. Okay, now let's see if I can find. So five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Now, how does this relate to canola? Well, it's an emotional market. Crop marketing is an emotional thing, right? So anyways, I think we're past denial. I think we've passed anger as well. For most producers out there, we may be at bargaining right now. I think we're in that bargaining stage. If I had to take a guess at it, I don't think we've reached the depression level. If we're going to use this in my weird example here, I don't think we've reached depression yet, because we are all sitting here hoping for that spring weather rally, okay?
And that's giving us that hope that, hey, it's February. The highs of the markets aren't made in February or not normally. So we're holding on till spring. We're holding on to this drought.
If we get that weather market, then life's good.
Take advantage of it. But if we don't, if we make some lows into the spring like we did last year, you got to remember, folks, our low came in at the end of May there. If that were to happen this year, then that's where that maybe depression would come in. And then acceptance throughout the summer maybe. A weird example, but I thought about the five stages of grief. So thanks for firing in that question on the text messaging app this morning. I will respond, folks. I will do my best to respond within the day. All right.
Of course, you can follow our journey here across all social media channels. Appreciate comments, messages. Keep them coming. I've got three farmers that have expressed interest in joining the podcast roundtable, the Farmer roundtable, one from Saskatchewan, a couple from Alberta. I am looking for a Manitoba farmer and someone in the peace country. So send me a message, super easy and fun.
A couple times this year we'll get together and have some roundtable discussions. And lastly, I've got some public speaking events coming up. And if you want the what, the Futures podcast out at your event, send me a message and we can talk about that as well.
All right, so we've got a hot topic here to cover today. It's going to be crop rankings.
We got some ag headlines that I want to cover, acreage numbers from FCC, some Donald Trump information, crop price updates we'll get to, we'll eat our veggies. And then, of course, we have a great guest today, Ryan, with cows in control, he's going to cover the cattle market, make me look like a bit of a fool at times, because I don't know enough about the cattle market, that's for sure. That's why we bring in these experts. But we're going to talk about bull sales, among a few other things as well. So if you've got cattle, hang in there. Ryan comes in later into the show, and then I've got John here towards the end. John had some beautiful trucks that he was selling, some beautiful peats they sold, unfortunately, before we could get this all sorted out. But he told me not to worry, there's more trucks coming. So he joins me at the end of the show to talk about that. And then, of course, we'll talk about who else is coming up here in the future. So let's get after it, folks. That's like the longest intro of the podcast to date. So I wanted to talk about my hot topic, which is crop rankings. Okay, now, crop rankings, there's a couple of ways to do this, and I like to do a crop ranking where I come up with my average prices for the year, and that one's kind of set in stone. I don't play with that one a whole bunch. I just leave it there because I want to reference how wrong I was at the end of the year.
But I also keep one going where I get the updated bids, at least going into spring. So I get the updated bids and I see what climbs and rankings, what drops in rankings and what will influence seeded acres. Okay? And then once crop insurance values come out for Saskatchewan and Alberta, I'll create another one and see how insurance is going to influence acres across the prairie. So for this week, malt barley bids came out from a couple of your maltsters. Okay. Now, these kind of set the trend for the prairies, and we did see line company bids in some regions up to 650. That's new crop malt. But now we got the raw bid, came out at 675.
Not going to like the world on fire, but yet, when it comes to eating your veggies, my recommendation is to price some of that, and I'll tell you why later on. And then prairie malt followed up. I think they're still called prairie malt and bigger. I'd have to double check, but they were at 650. Okay, so 675 in Alberta, 650 in Saskatchewan for malt. Now, I know what you're going to say. Well, Ryan, that's not that impressive. But when I go to my crop rankings and I type in those numbers, malt barley has now made its way into that five spot out of roughly 15 crops. Now, I don't have lentils in here. Green lentils are by far going to be the number one crop for many. Right. All sorts of different green lentils will be red lentils. Not as exciting. So take that with a grain of salt, because in my number one spot, I've got green peas. Right now, again, I'm using the Edmonton region because it's so hard to do this across the prairie. So anyways, malt barley makes it to the five spot. Green pea values climb and, oh, man, this should be in eating your veggies, I guess. But you guys have to do your homework out there because just in green peas, I saw an offer of $13 and an offer of $16 per bushel. $3 covers a lot of freight. A lot of freight. So you might be sitting here saying, well, jeez, I got offered 13, Ryan, and I'm in southern Saskatchewan. Well, for a couple of bucks, we can get it to the well, not even a couple of bucks, but we can get you to that 16 price point and probably put another buck or a buck 50 into your pocket. So this is one example on green peas. You guys have to do your price discovery homework, and I know you do. But for new crop, take a look at what's out there because it's a very fluid market. Now, I did pull back my maple peas a little bit here because some of those prices have pulled back. So it's in my number two spot. Now for crop rankings. Green peas again, just going back here, I'm talking about $700 an acre of revenue. For margin, you might be looking at 400, $500 of margin there. If you're a green pea grower, you're getting offered these prices. Secure the bag, folks. Price it. Take some of that action. All right, I've got maple peas in the number two spot. Again, great margins there. In the number three spot, I have lowered my oat price by ten cents to four ninety. We're going to talk about acres in a second here.
I don't think I actually have to do that, but I did, and it's in the number three spot right now. It's my top cereal, after all, seed, fert, chem, insurance, expenses. I'm at $330 an acre. So that pays the bills there as well. And my yield number is very achievable from there in the number four spot, I actually have yellow peas making a gain here. I did raise prices by $0.25. So there's some good profit sitting there in yellow peas. And then in that number five spot again was malt barley. After that, we go and dabble into the canolas. I've got some specialty canola in there. Using current bids. I've got regular canola in the number eight spot.
And if we want to take a look, flax has climbed all the way up to that number seven spot. And all these crops so far pay the bills. Okay? They pay the bills. They make the equipment payments. Everything is good in the Edmonton region after that. If I go down to number nine now, we're getting into the wheats. And between soft white, CPS red, hard red, there's not a lot of change.
I just encourage, if you're a CPS grower, CPS red versus hard red. Take a look at those numbers because hard red is certainly the one that's a little bit better opportunity. And those acres should potentially switch into hard red spring wheat. So take a look at that for yourself, though. But then wheats are, we're a little bit underwater. We're losing a little bit of money there. Especially low protein wheat falls towards that number 14 spot. So that's the latest crop rankings, folks. They evolve and change at all times. I encourage you to do them for your farm as well and to check them out there.
All right, let's see here. What do we have next? So I have a couple of headlines here for today.
So let's get to our ag headlines. I know I'm not your new source, but let's talk about a couple stories here that caught my eye.
All right, so first one for today, I've got FCC put out some acreage projections here, and I just want to highlight a couple significant ones because it's like throwing darts, folks. Everyone's got wild guesses, but that's why when we get to the stats can report and the USDA reports, you can get some wild market moves. So here's some cool ones from FCC that I just want to highlight. So remember, AAFC, not to confuse anybody on the podcast today, but they have an oat acreage increase of 27%, which still, if that were to happen, and it's not, but if that were to happen, you still have a very comfortable acreage number, I think I talked about a couple of weeks ago. It's not burdensome at all, but FCC has come in with a gain of, like, it looks to me like 1% or 2% on oats, which falls in line a lot closer to what farmers have been telling me. I'm not seeing those big oat growers come in and add in a bunch of acres. Now, I heard there were some strong oat prices in northeast Saskatchewan, so the acres will climb in that region. But in know, if you're an oat buyer listening into this, you're not doing a great job of buying acres. If you want to buy acres, you're not doing it. All right?
And in Manitoba, I'm not seeing a whole bunch of excitement there either. Okay, so maybe a bit in northeast Saskatchewan, which is a big oat growing area and a super important one, but oat acres, I think they'll be up more than that one or 2%, but not a whole bunch. So that was interesting to me.
I also see here that some of the discrepancies FCC has got Durham wheat down just ever so slightly. Where AAFC has an increase of three or 4% dry peas, FCC just sees another one or 2% increase there, whereas AFC has a five or 6% increase. Now, we know that maple peas and green pea acres will climb as much as they can, so that is going higher. But yellow peas for many, you still need to see some price gains. From what I can tell, canola is a fun one between the two because FCC has canola acres climbing a couple percent, and AAFC has them on the decline by about 3%, or a couple of percent, I should say. So they're going in the different directions now you're going to say, Ryan, 2%. Either way, who cares? And I 100% agree with you. Who cares? Not a market mover, Barley. FCC has got a climb in acreage of a couple of percent, whereas AAFC has a decline of about five. And I think Barley is an interesting one because the malt price, to me today, it doesn't bring a bunch of new players in to the malt market, but the malt growers sit there and say, okay, yeah, we'll do it at that price.
But for feed barley, I'll be curious here to see how this plays out because I could see acres holding a little bit neutral if you have and want to spend a little less money planting your crop here in 2024. So we'll see. The market, though, continues to slide. So again, we'll see how it looks. So that was interesting from FCC, those acreage projections, and you'll get all sorts of projections yet, folks. So take them with a grain of salt is all I have to say.
So next article that caught my attention was Trump for president. Now, I actually don't have the article in front of me, so I'm not going to read it word for word, but I do read a bunch of stuff and follow a bunch of sources. And if Donald Trump, and I'm not here to talk politics, but if Donald Trump is elected president in November, I believe, I thought it was February, but November, he is on record already talking about tariffs against chinese goods. Okay, which is what he did last time. Right.
And the soybean market would reference 2018 and 2018. I'm just going to pull the chart up. I had it up here a little while ago, but it was a tough year of market for marketing soybeans because China, they put in their own tariffs against soybeans, US soybeans. Right. So in 2018, in March of 2018, soybeans peak at 1067.
And then we make our low in the summer at eight six. Okay, so we go from 1067 to eight six. That's 250 a bushel. Something like that. If Trump is elect president, the tariffs are expected. This is bearish towards soybeans and the oil seed market that complex. To me, it's nuts to sit here and worry about.
You know, from the early indication signs point that Trump's got a good shot here and it's just something we got to keep an eye on because it can be a market mover. It's the only reason I bring it up, folks. Would I make a decision based on this article today? No, but I would keep a close eye on this heading into the fall.
Next article. Louis Dreyfus building a pea protein plant in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. Also doubling up their crush capacity in that same area. So just great to see continued investment into the space. Obviously, alternative protein is a big theme right now as well, but doubling that crush capacity is great as well. So that investment into that Yorkton area is what I'd like to highlight there.
And then lastly, again, I apologize, I don't have the articles to read word for word here, but there's been a drought committee that's been created for Alberta and you may have seen this in the headlines very much. The government is anticipating drought conditions here in 2024 and putting resources and getting people together to help navigate those times. And when we sit here and look at it again, I can find a long range forecast that brings in heavy moisture, events for late winter and spring moisture as well. But these are headlines that we need to pay attention to and they could have a big impact on markets here in the spring. So I wanted to highlight that as well because it's a bit of an extreme action. It's wise, though, if we do have a drought to have these people in place.
So I just wanted to highlight it for that reason.
All right, that's it for news here now let's go. So crop market prices, I've talked about a bunch of them already.
Let's see here.
Well, I do want to just shed, I know I talk a lot of canola, folks, but we did break below 600. I do want to highlight that. We did trade as low as 577 here earlier this week. We are on the rebound as of recording flirting with 600 again.
We need to close above 600 here to at least make me feel better for a couple of days. We are trending lower.
I'd say you've got some resistance up ahead at 618 or 620. Just something to keep in mind there as well as for crop prices going around the horn, I guess for old crop here, when I look at yellow peas, we did see a little bit of a recovery. Again, I know I talked about this a little bit the last couple of weeks, but 13 picked up on farm for old crop yellow peas. That's back in the game again, encourage you to take advantage of that new crop again, still holding between nine and ten for the most part. Old crop greens, I know they'll be quoted here at 18 or somewhere around there, but we did see a size 1950 trade. So again, you got to do your homework out there. Oats, I don't really have anything to talk about for oat prices, for updates, just stay fairly patient. It would be my recommendation.
Let's switch gears here to lentils. We've got, it's kind of holding the same new crop has climbed a little bit here. It looks like $0.57 for large greens.
And if we go over to mediums, they've traded at 52.
Sorry. Seventy two cents canadian. That's old crop here as well. New crop, 52 to 54. So those prices certainly holding, in fact, maybe even climbing just ever so slightly.
Yeah, I wanted to talk about wheat here real quick for crop pricing.
So we are trending lower in wheat, which is kind of an unnecessary comment because we're trending lower in everything. But part of eating your veggies here is to price wheat, because if you take the wheat chart, put it up over a year, six months, whatever you want to do. We are in a downtrend ever so slightly. And what is keeping your wheat prices afloat? And I know they're down from the highs from a few weeks ago. But demand is strong.
Export demand six, 8% above average pace, maybe even a historical high here. Pardon me. We'll see. So that's good. That's holding your price up. A lower canadian dollar is also helping, but the futures are not doing you any favors right now. So make sure you have those targets in seeing targets trigger above posted bids. So if your bid I saw the other day we had a bid of ucrop wheat. I should actually look up the exact example here real quick on the fly, but we threw in a target at $9 and the quote that we received, of course I'm not going to be able to find it here under pressure, but here we go.
It was 860. Threw in the target at nine and it triggered. It didn't trigger the same day, it triggered. Next day we had a small spike in prices and it triggered. So again, folks, I'm a big believer in pricing wheat. Take advantage of the demand. And so targets 25, 30, $0.40 above the market. Get those triggered and filled.
Okay, what else do we have for prices here?
I think that's good for now.
Yeah, I'll try to work harder on that next week. Okay, let's get to eating our veggies now. And you got to eat your veggies because it is the right thing to do.
Just realizing though, that that's my slogan I'm kind of using, but you never know. Seek the advice of a professional because this could be the wrong thing to do as well. Eating your veggies is the right thing, but this advice might not necessarily be bang on at all times. So last week we talked about making sure that your fertilizer needs were secured. And then we talked about buying that first trash of fuel. Might as well throw a french word in there. But making that first fuel purchase, I didn't know, folks, that some facility was going to have a disruption and that diesel prices would climb ten cents a liter between recording and sending this out. So we went from like a dollar two to a dollar twelve. I can't predict those things. There is a bit of a time warp here by the time you record it and get it out. So I do apologize for that. But things happen from time to time. All right, so let's go to eating our veggies. Number one, if you're a malt barley grower, sell some malt. I know this sucks to hear, you don't want to hear this, but it's a dollar 50 premium overfeed values in many areas with the exception of southern Alberta. You guys will shake your head at me saying, what are you drinking today, Ryan? But for many in Saskatchewan and into northern Alberta, you're seeing your feed values in the fives, low fives, even the fours, high fours for some of you, and malt, a buck 50 above that. So if you're in those areas, you're going to price some malt, barley. So get after that, secure your spring wheat. Sell some old crop, sell some new crop. Honestly, the main point here is to dust off your 2024 crop marketing plan and get after it, folks. You don't have to light the world on fire by selling everything. But go and sell a little bit of malt, a little bit of peas, a little bit of wheat, start building that marketing plan. Don't sit here and just leave it to chance. Okay.
Number three is a carryover from last week. Secure the bag, folks. Sell those green peas and green lantels. I cannot stress this enough. We know acres are going to climb. We know production is set to climb in the US and in Canada. Get after it. Secure the bag.
Two last ones on the crop input side, generic chem prices. If you want to talk about generic glyphosate or glufosnate, I know there's some articles out there in the western producer and so on and so forth, but they seem quite low. So take a look at those. If you need those products, take a look at them. Could be worth securing those savings. And then lastly, I'd like you to learn a new strategy for your farm on crop marketing. So if you've never done a call before or put or something like that, phone up your grain buyer or phone a friend or whatever you want to do, look this up. But you might surprise yourself by learning a new strategy. You want to learn it now in February so you can execute on it in May. Okay. That's what we want to do here. So that's our eating the veggies segment for this week.
Now we're going to turn it over here. I've rambled long enough. Thanks for hanging in there. Ryan, with cows in control, has got some great content here coming up for us. I'll turn it over to Ryan and let him lead us.
All right, folks, we have our return guests coming back to the what, the futures podcast. I've got Ryan Copithorn joining me here once again. Ryan, you joined me back in, I think it was November when the show first got going and I got a lot of positive feedback, a lot of people responding saying get that guy back on the show at some point. Very near future. So welcome back to the show, Ryan. How's it going?
[00:31:17] Speaker B: Good. Well, thank you. I'm glad to hear that.
[00:31:20] Speaker A: Yeah, you bet.
I certainly appreciate your perspective. I'm not an expert in anything, so that's why I bring in so many guests. But you're the guy, man. You are the guy when it comes to cattle. And I have to tell you, I went the other day, beautiful weather this winter, right? And my wife said, we're making steak tonight. And I said, awesome, that's perfect.
Usually we buy a half or a quarter or something like that. The freezer is usually fairly well stocked, have lots of friends and neighbors that have cattle. So it's an easy thing to accomplish. Well, I go to the freezer, I don't have any steak, and I've already made the promise to the wife that we're having steak later that day, so had to go into town. I lived 20 minutes outside of town. I went to Costco, which usually has some pretty good cuts and there wasn't a lot of inventory to choose from in the store.
I don't know if it was time of day or know. I had a great steak, but I paid for it as was. The prices were certainly a little bit on the higher end there. So anyways, are things going good for cattle guys out there? What are you seeing in general? Comments?
[00:32:44] Speaker B: Yeah, as far as cattle prices, things are great and I think they're looking great. We got a good couple of years ahead of us, I think. But this drought is just the wild card that nobody can figure out. And there's a lot of people that are still questioning whether we're out of it, including myself. So drought is going to be the wild card. But as far as cycles and cattle markets and stuff, we're in a good cycle here. So I think ranchers can make some money here.
[00:33:15] Speaker A: Awesome. Did you see in the news this week they were talking about they created this committee to help. I don't know, I should read the article, but to navigate the looming or the drought that they feel is continuing on. Did you see that in the Alberta? I think it's Alberta government or something created some type of committee for this.
I should be more specific. But they are concerned about drought, that's for sure. That's the impression, yeah, I think we should be.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: It's definitely a real problem for us in the cattle business in terms of grass and water and forage supplies. We're getting tight. There's not much out there.
[00:33:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I can find a weather person or two with a long range forecast that shows moisture. So I can find those that show drought as well. But I just lean towards the guy showing moisture. That's what I'm going with right now, so it makes me feel bad.
[00:34:15] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good way to be.
[00:34:18] Speaker A: Is there anything that's kind of catching your attention that you want to cover off first here today? Anything that's got a sparkle in your eye that you want to review?
[00:34:27] Speaker B: Well, I think we were.
One of the things that really sort of hit the radar the last week was that USDA inventory report.
It made headlines with saying that the cattle herd in the US is down to levels not seen since 1951. And so that's a pretty splashy headline for the cattle industry, showing that things are getting tight.
I think there's ways to sort of balance that out a little bit. We have to remember there's still a half a million head of cattle backlog down there in feed lots.
[00:35:04] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:35:04] Speaker B: And the last cattle on feed report, the cattle on feed were 2% higher than last year. So there's still lots of cattle in the system that have to be worked through. And packers are really slowing down at this point. They're not making much money. So what they're doing is it's kind of like if somebody at the bottom of the escalator just decides to stop and not get off and all of a sudden everything piles up behind them. That's kind of what the packers are doing by slowing down their kills. But long term, it's a bullish thing. But it actually has me more concerned, not so much about the cattle and the beef. I'm more concerned about producers. I've been looking at the number of producers out there and our producers in Canada, we used to have 120,000 cattle producers in 2000, and now we're down to, like, 60,000.
And those 60,000 producers are making $24 billion worth of addition to the Canada's GDP. That's $400,000 per producer being added to GDP. And we're losing producers. Like, we've basically got cut in half in 20 years or something. So I think if the government wants to worry about stuff, they should be worrying about that rather than methane and all the other things they worry about if they should really start focusing on we're losing our ranch population. Rancher population.
[00:36:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I had a conversation with somebody about this, actually, the other day, and obviously the cost of entry is significant. It's not easy to enter, but you look at who's coming in and building a herd or the young people involved.
Not that it's far and few everywhere, but you have to look around a little bit because it's hard work. It's not easy work and we're losing and not gaining. The entry is just not there. So I know last time we chatted a little bit about, I think there was an ATB incentive on a loan. Yeah. But anyways, there's going to need to be a lot more done, for sure.
Okay, so 1951. That's substantial.
Very interesting.
I had a question come in over Twitter from Tyler Wilson. He farms, I believe, southwest Saskatchewan. He's got a chart here and he says, is there any experts out there that want to tell me what happens now that March feeders has filled this gap? Should I be booking calves into next week's sale or should I still be good to keep until March or April? You want to take a stab at that one?
[00:37:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I can take a stab. The market definitely, it had a big sell off last fall, so we sort of peaked in September and then the market dropped into December. And since then, I'm talking the futures market mostly right now, but the futures market has basically rebounded or bounced off those lows.
It's regained half or 60% of what it lost last fall. And so that's the gap he's talking about as it goes up. It's filling these sort of spots in the chart that had left gaps along the way.
But the thing in Canada is that our prices didn't fall as far as the US futures prices did in Canada. And they also didn't bounce as much. So the US futures and cattle prices have rebounded nicely.
Our cattle are still $20 to $0.25 cheaper than US cattle right now. So I think we've got a little bit of a game of catch up to play.
Part of the reason I think, is drought in Canada. And I also think it's because our packers have kind of held back, kill a little bit.
But at the end of the day, our feeder prices are $20 to $0.25 too cheap relative to us.
I think there's a little upside there.
That being said, I do see a little chop and slop in the markets until we get all these finished cattle through the system that are kind of plugging up the works in us and Canada. And that could take to March April type thing. I'm very bullish beyond April. I just think it's extremely bullish beyond there. Unless something black swan comes along or something to derail this thing, it should be very bullish. So I don't think I'd be in a big hurry. A lot of the forward projections are looking good. The futures market is projecting really good prices, especially out to the fall. We're talking like 360 for an eight weight and four and a quarter for a five weight. So these are really good prices. If people can hang on nice.
[00:40:01] Speaker A: It's kind of a welcome sign a little bit, because I look at a lot of charts, a lot of canola, wheat, corn, soybean charts. Those are looking a little bit nasty. Trending lower the cattle charts. When I took a peek here before starting to record, they actually look not too bad. They look good. So trending the right way, I think.
[00:40:27] Speaker B: It'S the only game in town. I think there's a bunch of disgruntled grain farmers that are really angry at the prices, that are just buying cattle futures because they're tired of grain futures.
It's like it's the only game in town right now. I've been expecting this cattle market to actually kind of pull back a little bit. It's had a nice little run since December, but it's been strong. It's been holding in there pretty good.
[00:40:54] Speaker A: I got another question here from Scott, and he was asking about cycles.
When grain prices are poor, are cattle prices strong? Is that something that you can kind of bank on when it happens, or how do those cycles work between the two, the cattle price and the grain price?
[00:41:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that's a yes and no question. Because short term, when grain prices drop, it improves our cost of gains. And so cattle buyers, feed lots and such, will be able to bid up more for cattle because they know that their feed costs are cheaper. So they kind of go opposite each other. But longer term, they actually track each other, because as soon as grain gets cheap, it makes it cheaper for chickens and cheaper for hogs, and it makes it cheaper for cattle feeding. And you end up getting more and more supply when the grain gets cheap.
My father always used to say it, cheap grain, cheap cattle. And that's the long term outcome usually. And it works in the opposite, too. When grains get expensive, cattle get expensive. They both kind of track together, and you can see that in the even the early 2000s, where they both went up together to new levels. But short term, it does have a sort of a bullish impact on cattle.
[00:42:16] Speaker A: All right, appreciate that.
One more for you here. I noticed that, and I don't know if bull sales when they normally start, but it seems like it picks up traction here in February.
Any thoughts on what the price of a bull would look like compared to history. Is it up a whole bunch? A little bit, yeah. I'm not familiar with the process. A whole bunch. So what do you see on bull prices?
[00:42:46] Speaker B: Well, bull prices, yeah, this is kind of the bull selling season now. From now till April, primarily, and we're seeing pretty good prices, 7000, 8000 averages and that type of thing.
But the bull market is kind of like the bread market or the feed market. It's a very personalized or subjective thing.
It's really hard to put your finger on. It's not like it has a futures market that it's based off of. It's really just kind of buyer preference. So if people want to bid bull prices up to 10,000 plus, they could. If we get a hot market here.
So right now I think it'll be between five and 8000 on average, I would think. And if it starts to heat up, I think it could get over 10,000 for both.
[00:43:39] Speaker A: Nice.
What I did notice is that every operation, there's like a whole presentation around it and a whole package come out. This is the date, this is the pictures, the links. It's a very personal experience, or it seems to be a very personal experience. So that's pretty cool. Is that right?
[00:44:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like branding time. It's like a social event to get out to these bull sales and visit with people.
It's a very kind of a special gathering for people to visit and buy some bulls.
[00:44:17] Speaker A: Do you get out to a few of them then to the bull sales?
[00:44:21] Speaker B: I try to. I'm more of a guest jockey now than a cattle producer. But it's nice when you get out to those sales to visit with people, for sure.
[00:44:30] Speaker A: Nice. Cool. All right. I know you also pay attention to the feed grains market a little bit. Anything there stand out for you? Barley prices, corn prices, anything like that?
[00:44:43] Speaker B: I am not an expert on this, but I'm wondering.
This period really reminds me of 2005 to 2008 when ethanol was just about ready to come out and we had lots and lots and lots of grain around. And yet when you looked at the projections for how much ethanol was going to use, it was like, it's impossible. There's no way that's going to happen. Then, of course, in 2008, grain went from like $3, corn went from $3 to eight or whatever it was.
I am wondering if that's going to happen with these renewable fuels. There's sure a lot of plants projected to come online. But like I said, I'm not an expert. I throw that out to the grain guys. Maybe some of the people you talk to can answer that question for me. But if there's a bullish story, it's got to be that because the supply and demand fundamentals are pretty awful. Otherwise there's a lot of grain out there.
[00:45:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's going to be a bit of a tough winter yet, but the future, I think it can look bright in many different areas.
Like normal. Right, Mark? Go up forever. They don't go down forever, but it'll be interesting here when we get these plants up and running and what that does for demand. So the market seems to be shifting.
Instead of exporting our canola seed, we are going to crush our canola seed and export more oil and meal and things like that. So it's, I think. Yeah, okay, cool. Ryan, anything else you want to add for today? I know we covered a lot already, but anything else?
[00:46:22] Speaker B: No, I just appreciate what you're doing with this podcast and no, it's looking good for ranchers, so I hope they take advantage of it. I got a lot of people that are skeptics. They don't believe that once prices get high, they get very nervous, and rightfully so. But as far as supply fundamentals, this thing looks pretty good for a couple of years. So ride the bull.
[00:46:44] Speaker A: Awesome. And how can people get a hold of you?
[00:46:47] Speaker B: Cowsandcontrol.com is usually the easiest way. If you get on my website, you can sign up for my newsletter on there. I got a free newsletter, so otherwise you can contact me by phone or cell phone on the website there too.
[00:47:04] Speaker A: Perfect. Fantastic. Thanks so much Ryan, for joining us once again. Look forward to having you here shortly. In the next month or so, we'll get you back on and we'll keep seeing if we can ride this momentum higher. So thanks for joining us. I hope you have a great rest of your week. Yeah, you bet.
[00:47:20] Speaker B: Thanks, Ryan.
[00:47:24] Speaker A: All right. That was, of course, Ryan Copithorn with cows in control.
He always does a great job when he joins the show. If you want more information, head to cowsincontrol.com. That's his website. He is the cattle expert on the what the Future show and he would love to hear from you. Next up here, you can see in the shot. I've got a guest to help us wrap up the show. I've got some trick questions for him at the very end, so just hang on for a few more minutes, folks. But joining me here, I've got John Kaufman from Prairie West Farms.
It's kind of funny because we were originally supposed to talk about a couple of trucks that John had for sale, a couple of Pete's. But of course, by the time that we got this lined, know, took a couple hours to get organized to record they sold. So, John, just, let's talk about the history of the here, what happened? What's so special about these trucks? Why do they go so fast?
[00:48:27] Speaker C: We got a line on four, well, actually six in the end. Pardon me, 2023 and 24 Peterbilt. That were all 100,000, 50,000, 30,000 down to 9000 kilometer units. Very clean, very well specked and beautiful trucks. And yeah, yesterday at 02:59 p.m. I thought I'd just throw them on Twitter quick before I left for the day for some basketball. And by the time I got back out of the gym, I had some fairly major interest on them and kind of made a soft deal overnight. And this morning, reconfirmed with the customer and it sounds like he's going to take all of them.
[00:49:13] Speaker A: Nice. Just that easy new fleet of truck showing up. Perfect. Well, they look great, man. When I saw the pictures, they look fantastic. So I know. I was excited about them as well. And I don't need a truck.
All right.
[00:49:30] Speaker C: You never know what you could put to use if you have it sitting in your driveway.
[00:49:34] Speaker A: Yeah, that's to. I'm going to Lethbridge next week. I was going to volunteer to drive one down because I know they're heading towards that direction, but apparently I need a special license or something to drive that, so I better not.
[00:49:48] Speaker C: Minor detail.
[00:49:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
All right, so these trucks have come and gone quickly.
What else do you got, man, in inventory? Do you got anything else kicking around the farm that you want to sell or anything on the lot over there?
[00:50:04] Speaker C: Truck wise? We've got nothing at the moment, but we do have fairly likely some more pretty clean units and low kilometer units coming in the next three weeks to a month. I want to say depends on how. Got a bit of a restructuring thing going on, so not sure with the timeline exactly, but we're definitely going to have more. We have sold probably close to 200 trucks, I would say, for this fleet manager that we deal with out of BC. So kind of stuff coming and going all the time.
On the trailer side, we've got some tankers, a couple of spray trailer options. We've got a dry van, and I've got a couple sets of superbees available as well at the moment. And there might be some more of those grain trailers coming in in the near future here as well.
[00:50:54] Speaker A: Okay, cool.
If people want to see your inventory or stay in tune with what you got coming in, what is the best way for them to do that?
[00:51:05] Speaker C: For current inventory? We have almost everything listed on our website at the moment. I was just having some trouble loading some pictures here this morning. So the grain trailers aren't up picture wise yet, but pioneertruckandtrailer.com is the website that's going to get you the most information on the current inventory. And then if you're looking for just to keep tabs on new stuff coming in, probably my Twitter handle just John Kaufman. I think it's at Moline Green is the best way to kind of keep tabs on that. That would seem to be a pretty good way to get some traction on these last trucks. Anyways. Yesterday we had over 9000 views in about 11 hours, so it was a popular set of equipment.
[00:51:52] Speaker A: All right folks, you heard it there. Go check out John's Twitter. And of course you can take a peek at what you missed out on on those beautiful peets because I'm sure that post is still up there as well. So take a look at the pictures. Beautiful trucks there. John, before I let you go, I know you're a little bit of an NFL fan.
I have to come get that trophy, by the way, because that trophy belongs to me now for our fantasy.
[00:52:17] Speaker C: That's right. Yeah.
[00:52:19] Speaker A: Okay, so just a couple of easy props. We'll do a couple of props here while I got you. We can record this. They're locked in stone, but who are you rooting for between Kansas City and San Francisco? Who's going to win the big ah.
[00:52:38] Speaker C: Boy, I would love to say the refs because I really don't like either of those teams, but as a Dallas Cowboys fan, I really can't cheer for the refs either. So I'm going to go with the least hated for me and my family and it's probably going to be the 49 ers despite as a Cowboys fan that might come off as strange, but I have three daughters and a wife who all think Brock Purdy is a pretty neat guy despite being staunch Cowboys fans as well. So I think we're going to go.
[00:53:10] Speaker A: Purdy is a purdy guy is what you're saying.
[00:53:12] Speaker C: Yeah, I hear enough about it and we've all had enough of Patrick Mahomes, the quarterback series on Netflix.
He almost had a swayed into being a supporter, but yeah, I just can't root for the guy anymore.
[00:53:25] Speaker A: So I've only watched episode one, and he marries his high school sweetheart. So that's. I'll just end it to. I'm going to go for Kansas City, keep the legacy going. I'll take Kansas City on this one. I've not watched further episodes. All right, next one. What color is the Gatorade going to?
[00:53:45] Speaker C: Hmm.
[00:53:46] Speaker A: I guess last year, I think they said it was purple.
[00:53:52] Speaker C: I would say. Why wouldn't you go red? We got red all around both teams.
[00:53:58] Speaker A: Okay. I'm going to go blue.
Just craving a blue Gatorade anyway. At the moment, it is one of the best.
[00:54:04] Speaker C: Blue and white are the top flavors in our household.
[00:54:08] Speaker A: I've got a cold, so I got to hydrate. I got to get my fluids up.
Okay. And then if Kansas City wins, will Travis Kelsey propose to Taylor Swift on the field.
[00:54:24] Speaker C: With the Super bowl ring as the engagement ring? Is that part of the deal?
[00:54:28] Speaker A: I think, yeah.
[00:54:32] Speaker C: Boy. I don't know. That's a tough one. I'm going to say they love the PR. I'm going to say yes. I think he goes for it.
[00:54:42] Speaker A: There's going to be, next week, there'll be an entire Netflix series that gets released, and it'll be about the whole journey.
[00:54:50] Speaker C: Yeah, it's pre recorded. It's already done.
[00:54:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm with six.
[00:54:55] Speaker C: Just like the rest of the NFL. Right? It's scripted.
[00:54:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm going with a yes on that one, too. All right, you guys watching the big game this weekend? You guys going to fire up the barbecue there?
[00:55:05] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. The smoker will be going. That's our football tradition. Sad. It's coming to a close here, but good thing the Oilers are going to go on a deep run. We'll be still barbecuing and smoking all the way into.
[00:55:17] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Awesome. Well, thanks for joining me. Thanks for having some fun here at the end. And, folks, if you want to see some nice, clean trucks, head over to John's Twitter and website and he'll get you hooked up.
Lastly here, folks, just wrapping up the episode. I'm just going to check my show notes real quick. I'm going to be on location next week in Lethbridge, Alberta, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday at the farming smarter conference. I believe if you're going to be there as well, hit me up on social media. I'd love to connect. I'll try to get our weather guy on for next week from bamwx. And this morning we're recording on Wednesday. This morning, I was on the phone with Mike Lee. He lives somewhere in the UK, but he's our russian Ukraine agronomist guy, and he's going to start joining the show on a regular basis as well. So lots of exciting things coming up here at what, the Futures podcast. So for John and my self, I'm just going to say that we're out close.
