Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] All right, folks, I wanted to put together a little bonus episode for the last half of August here. So here we go. We're gonna go through my top 10 from worst to best price gains. These are my expectations for the 2026 crop. Western Canadian farmers, let's do it. Episode 139 coming at you right now.
[00:00:25] Hey, folks, welcome to the what the Futures podcast, your quick guide to better farming decisions.
[00:00:39] All right, folks, welcome into episode 139 of the what the Futures podcast. Of course. My name is Ryan. I'm the host of the show, and I'm hanging out here in the UPL studio. It is Monday, August 17th. I wanted to put together a little bonus content here. We've got many farmers across the prairies, you know, starting to harvest, kind of getting things going, getting the. The kinks worked out here. And I thought it could be a fun exercise to go over, you know, what crops are we going to store, go over like a top 10 of expectations for price gains.
[00:01:20] And also to lay out what I feel could be a bit. What crops could be a bit of a snoozer here. May not be worth, you know, holding on into 2027. Right.
[00:01:33] So I thought we could have some fun with that, of course, hanging out in the UPL studio each and every week. Don't forget, folks, there's never a bad time to sign up for grower Rewards for the UPL Grower Rewards program. You can go check that out on their website, talk to your local retail and get set up. It is one of the most lucrative program here.
[00:01:55] Yeah. In the. In the Canadian prairies on that side of the business.
[00:02:00] If you like what you're seeing on the show here.
[00:02:03] Just kidding. But if you like the show, subscribe on YouTube, 1600 subscribers and. And climbing. So appreciate that. If you're not a YouTube participant, then, you know, go and hit the.
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[00:02:35] All right, shout out producer Aaron, who's behind the scenes for his third episode. I think we have Aaron for this one and then Tyler taking over for the next couple. So Aaron's been doing some great work for us here behind the scenes, so keep it up. We certainly do appreciate it.
[00:02:54] No guest for this one. I do have Linville coming up. I've got Stroud. That'll be on later this week. So I got a couple heavy hitters in the next few episodes, but of course, this one is just me. It's solo. Wanted to go over, you know, crop marketing.
[00:03:13] What could we be seeing? Or what could I, you know, what could I. What am I looking at? I guess from a price gains perspective, because it's. It's not a guarantee here that this crop marketing, this commodity setup is changing into bigger and better and more bullish moving into 2027. It's not a guarantee, but what could be some of the crops that see the biggest gains and do we need to change our crop marketing plans here moving forward when. What I mean by that is when you're sitting here and you are in a neutral pattern, sideways pattern from a market perspective, you look at futures, you know, maybe they're trending fairly sideways. You're. You're trying to pick off the highs, you're trying to. To pick off sales higher than your last one.
[00:04:13] You hit profitability. You want to sell something, you get a quick spike in the market because it was too hot for a week or two, and it pops. Or something happened and it pops. You know, you sell into that.
[00:04:26] But there's also times where, as markets evolve and change, where you could be sitting there and maybe it's a little bit more like 2020 or 2021. Maybe there's factors here that make you think or give the perception that this could be a more bullish setup into 2027. Maybe you're sitting there thinking, man, if this El Nino pattern continues to intensify and have an impact on crops in 2027, that's where the real magic's gonna happen.
[00:05:02] You could be sitting there and saying, well, now instead of marketing for the, you know, top of a. Of a range or a spike from an event, you might be sitting here saying, well, now my marketing plan is going to be about, you know, selling when I need to have the cash in place.
[00:05:21] And you might be sitting here and thinking, well, this is a really silly start to this episode. This is. This is a really silly start to this conversation. But just think about it for a minute. Like, if we sat here and with 100% confidence, could put our crops in the bin, knowing that they would climb in value that from the price today in August or September, that you threw it in the bin and it was going to climb, then you would mark it differently. You would mark it based on your cash flow needs. You might even do some different things. But we won't get into all of that today. I don't think.
[00:06:01] But you might sit there and say, okay, I need 100 grand by this date in September. I'm gonna get that in place.
[00:06:09] I need another 200 grand by this date in November. I'm going to get that in place. And all of a sudden you're sitting there, you're looking at your commodity mix on your farm, and you might be sitting there saying, well, what crop should I move?
[00:06:23] Maybe in this scenario, you've got four crops. You think they're all going to climb in value. You still need to generate the cash, though.
[00:06:31] So what crop are you gonna move, right? And what crop are you gonna sit back and look for further appreciation? No matter what happens, though, you need that 200 grand in November.
[00:06:42] So your crop marketing can, you know, kind of evolve here a little bit. If I hope that's kind of. That's coming through and I'm not sitting here today saying, hey, you know, I think that you should take all your crop, throw it in the bin, and it's all gonna increase in value into 20.
[00:07:02] I don't know. Half of this list doesn't really cover its cost to carry, right? There's interest costs out there. There's lines of credit that need to be paid.
[00:07:11] It's not just free to throw it in the bin. And I guess not for our farm anyway. Maybe for your farm, but for our farm, you know, there's a cost to this. So, you know, what could I sit on and. And what should I move first or what should I move a little more, you know, quickly? I guess we'll throw that out there.
[00:07:31] So a little bit of a silly episode this week because this is really doing. Trying to pull this off, you know, a couple of weeks before harvest really gets going here because we do have a delayed harvest in the Canadian prairies. It's a little bit silly because the wrong rain events, you know, at the wrong time, can really change this.
[00:07:55] You know, you could be sitting here. I. I have, you know, like, malt barley is one of my lowest gains here for. For a crop getting tossed in the bin from. I'm using a price of 625A bushel here for. For my area of Alberta for fall movement. And I'm sitting here saying, yeah, I think it go. Go up to like 650, 660. But, you know, the wrong reign at the wrong time, and all of a sudden this thing could really kind of take off.
[00:08:28] So I want to put it out here that it's a little bit silly for me to be doing this at this time, but I also think it's important to have a conversation about your crop marketing plans and have a conversation about, you know, is this an environment where cash flow is going to dictate your sales and not so much price targets or price levels. Again, I hope that's, you know, that's coming across okay for you.
[00:09:00] Now, before I get into that, positive moments for this week. Just real quick. This'll be a short episode, but positive moment for this week. It's actually just a silly one. So we.
[00:09:12] We were camping last week and it rained every like six hours for the first half. And we decided last minute just to see, like, where else could we get a spot for a couple days because the forecast was looking good. And one of the worst things out there is taking your camping gear when it's wet, packing it up, and having to get home, take everything out again to dry it out. So anyways, last minute decision. Found a great or a campsite. We didn't know if it was going to be great, but found a campground. You know, making our way back towards home, but in a new spot we had never been. And so the weather looked good. We ended up lucking out. This. This campground went to Thunder Lake Provincial park just outside of Barhead. And like, we don't have a big trailer. It's 26ft. So it's. I don't know, normal size is what you could say. But There was basically two campsites left and they were looking like 70ft. Huge campsite power.
[00:10:09] Like, that's weird. Like there's nothing else available.
[00:10:11] Maybe there's something wrong when we get there. Like, you know, maybe there's like a slew in the middle of it or something. Because our first campsite at Carson Pegasus, we pulled in, it started raining. I had just backed the camper in and we got out in a puddle of water and we looked around and it was like an island. And by the time we left, that campsite was half full of water. We would have had to move anyway. So anyways. But no, we lucked out. We got there and phenomenal spot. And all the campsites were full. Half of them were junk. We never could have got in them. Somehow we lucked out, got a great site, great weather, and just a really fun way to extend our camping trip.
[00:10:54] Also, just a side note, I don't know what is going on with squirrels in 2026, but the kids have. They've got Play Doh out, they've got toys out. It's chaos, as expected.
[00:11:10] And so we Got this Sesame street house set up with these little like character figurine things.
[00:11:19] And if you're camping out at Slave Lake, you may stumble upon a squirrel that has five new friends.
[00:11:29] Cuz we, we caught the squirrel taking our characters because there was five characters and then there was four and then there was three. And I'm like on the kids, like where are your characters? Like put your toys away. And all of a sudden I saw in the squirrel's mouth the Elmo character. And these things are like, I don't know, three inches tall. And he's got it in his mouth and he's just beelining it for his house or whatever. And so he's. He's got friends now.
[00:11:58] But I'd never seen that before. Usually it's food or something like that. But this was the, the toys. I don't know. That setup that that squirrel has must be phenomenal because guarantee we're not the only toys in there.
[00:12:09] So he's got lots going on. But even over here at.
[00:12:13] At Carson. Pegasus.
[00:12:17] No, pardon me. This was that thunder at the end.
[00:12:20] The squirrels were taking all the kids play doh. Like you get little. I don't know, you might get like a little play doh knife and a cutting board and all this stuff. Anyways, all this stuff started disappearing. The squirrels were taking all the kids play DOH stuff as well. So I don't know what's going on with squirrels in 2026. We had a great end of our camping trip. We do have two more camping trips yet. We try to get 30 nights in the trailer. Which you know, if you're sitting there with a seasonal lot, you're like 30 nights, like that's nothing. Right? But no, we move this thing across the prairies all summer long and looking forward to another big week here next week and then one more in September. So we, we keep the good times going at the. The. The Denis family camping adventures.
[00:13:04] All right.
[00:13:06] Okay, well let's get into just a little monologue here or.
[00:13:12] Yeah, you know what, I'm going to save that. Let's just go right into the top 10 worst to best because I need a little bit more.
[00:13:21] I'll give you a teaser because I'm going to work on this for next episode. But what I was going to talk about in the is in the monologue was funny games with fall basis. Okay, so here's the real scenario.
[00:13:35] Automatic pricing dates on your futures first contracts. Okay? So automatic pricing dates. It may be the 15th of the month. 15th of the month. It may be the 25th, it could be the last day of the month. They all vary out there. And if you have, you may have experienced one of these in the last few days or a few weeks, but they are all a little bit different.
[00:13:58] So basis gets priced on a CPS contract.
[00:14:04] Okay, now this basis for fall delivery is the worst basis I've seen in a long, long time.
[00:14:13] And in an area with a poor crop because those do exist in the Canadian prairies, there are some areas that have received excessive moisture and the crops, they're not looking good in those areas.
[00:14:25] And so I would anticipate that this is the worst basis, the worst basis that this farm is going to, going to see. Okay?
[00:14:36] Now the unfortunate situation is that this farm also needs to may not have enough production to fill the contracts. So decent futures level locked in, terrible basis. And the, the basis at neighboring elevators, 30, 40, 50 cents better. That's something that as a farm you just need to score that. Put that in your, in your crop marketing book. Maybe you've got like Nathan's black book where you write down your crop marketing decisions. But you have to remember that because when we were doing these futures first contracts, we, we put this as a potential concern and it came to fruition where, you know, we have this futures first contract at the company with the absolute worst basis by 30, 40, $0.50, depending on which other elevator you want to compete with. So a bit of a low blow on this one.
[00:15:34] So you know, I went to the grower and I said, hey, we're in a production shortfall here based on your contracts anyway.
[00:15:44] So let's take this worst one and let's have that. Let's get the ball rolling on exiting that contract.
[00:15:53] Let's get out of those bushels, let's take out the checkbook and write a check. And honestly, you could get out of that contract and you could resell those bushels over here and make your money back anyway. Like make some money on it anyway. But anyway, we'll park that for now.
[00:16:15] So the weird thing, what I need to dig into is that the basis that the grower locked, got automatically locked in on Friday, that basis is not present in the buyout conversation.
[00:16:32] The number that again, we'll see. It's a lot bigger.
[00:16:37] So I put in, I put in the email last week, you know, a bit of a joke and basically it's, you know, I fear, I fear nobody or I fear kind of nothing.
[00:16:54] And then it says page two of the grain.
[00:16:58] I'm trying to find it here. I put it in the lunchbox crew chat.
[00:17:03] Of course I'm not going to find it as I'm scrolling through here. Where did I tuck that thing?
[00:17:09] Anyways, basically a joke about, you know, I'm not scared of anything except for page two of the grain contracts that I have to sign with line companies. Like those are. I fear for.
[00:17:23] I fear those. Right. Again, this is a perfect example.
[00:17:27] Like why would the posted basis that gets locked in. Why would it be that much different when you have to change the conversation then on. On exiting.
[00:17:38] Because they should be the same.
[00:17:41] And again I, you know all this does. It doesn't matter if it's this specific situation or if it's the canola conversation from earlier last week or if it's the yellow P exit from before.
[00:17:57] Like the hedging account conversation.
[00:18:05] It's almost now it's not even. It was a no brainer before. I don't even know how to make it more clear.
[00:18:13] But as farms farmers in the prairies, when you can't get a concrete buyout formula or calculation to exit a contract that it is so vague and can be any, any number that's not even a real number that can come across as part of your bio calculation. Like this is just, we saw it in 2020 and where I live, we had this happen in 2020.
[00:18:47] Then the prairie saw all of this happen in 2021. And in 2021 everybody became a business person, right? Everybody had to be here's my I'm a business person, bring my checkbook. There was no hey, let's figure this out together. Farmer and grain elevator. There was none of that. There was no, you know, we used to roll contracts to the next year. There'd be a penalty, but there was a solution. There'd be common ground. It became, because it was so severe in 2021 it became here's a number, here's your contract, here's the buyout. And the number that would come back was like where is this coming from? Like where If I sold it for 5, but now you're posted bid is 6, but you're telling me I have to buy it on 8. Like what is this? And it just became, well that's, that's where we think we can buy grain again. Or that's the target in the system completely. The fact that we've allowed this to happen as farmers and be okay with this is insane.
[00:19:48] It is absolutely insane. And it again, you, you, the grain companies want you to sell grain. They want to know their position. They want you to Come to the table and sell them some stuff so they can plan. But we continue to get reasons where you just need to be operating in a hedge account. You just need to be operating on the side and then separating those out because this, this is not. This is not changing. And I don't know what, I don't know who can change this conversation with the grain companies. Who can go down the path of putting a reasonable.
[00:20:26] It should be, guys, it should be as easy as this. All right, we'll make it very, very simple here for August 17th. If you have sold a commodity at X price and the line company, they're posted price to the world on their website is this. That should be it. That should be the buyout.
[00:20:45] And if it can't be that, if you want to throw administration fees on there, which when I was a grain buyer, administration fees were margin. They were. When a lot of administration ago happened in the background. There wasn't a lot of expense in the background. But anyway, they would. And it was always negotiable too. What that was administration fees. I remember they'd start at 20 bucks a ton of. And then depending on the situation, could be waived completely. Oh, you had a hail event. That's terrible.
[00:21:13] A big hail event. Yeah, don't worry about it. You know, no admin fees on this one.
[00:21:17] That would happen because they were margin.
[00:21:20] But it could be as easy as that. I don't know who we have to talk to. I don't know like what we need to do if we have to hire an airplane to like put some something in the sky sign in the sky or something, but it should be as easy as that. And if it can't be, I don't know, guys. I don't know why we're signing these contracts. Okay, that was way longer than I expected. I'm going to dig more into this. I'm hoping to get the farmers to come on and do a little farmer conversation as well. Maybe there's others in the space that should be on the show to talk this through.
[00:21:53] But I don't know why we shouldn't be signing page two, that's for sure.
[00:21:58] I don't know, guys. I'm going to hear about it on this one. I'd love to hear about it because a fake number, a number that comes out of thin air again, this comes back to locking in a basis on Friday In a production shortfall. There's more to this story. But in a production shortfall, and then the number on Monday, say, you know what? I don't have all this anyway. I need to get out of some of this. That number being way different.
[00:22:25] I don't know, guys. That stinks. Really, really stinks.
[00:22:29] Okay, that went on way too long. See, sometimes I go on these tangents. I promise a short episode.
[00:22:35] There we go. I can go off once in a while, but if you have a story you want to share, not this has to be legit stuff. I don't want pretend baloney or I got my feelings hurt. I'm going to come and say something that's not true. But if you have a true story, maybe a bit of documentation to go with it, maybe some learnings that might be a good enough one. Just some learnings. Like think about what we learned from the emoji guy back in the day, right? Like, we learned that.
[00:23:03] That right there, that. That thumbs up means a bunch that we didn't know about. I. I think all the contracts I get, I would just do thumbs down now. In fact, my brother had a fun one the other. Well, this would have been a couple years ago now. Anyways, we'll move on.
[00:23:19] Okay, that's it for the monologue. Let's move now. Let's move into the top. My top 10 really weird episode to have that and then this in there. All right, because the grain buyers are going to be listening to this one, too.
[00:23:32] That's how. That's how we got them. We got them hooked into this part. This is what they wanted to hear now, but we got them listening to that first part, so maybe that's mission accomplished here. We'll see.
[00:23:42] All right, now, I didn't. I didn't go through all of the crops because, like, I didn't. I didn't do chickpeas on here at 500,000 acres. I didn't do canary seed or even flax at 650,000 acres. Like, I kind of went after the bigger ones and I wanted to limit it to 10.
[00:24:05] Now, we can all hope that I'm completely wrong on these and that the prices just go that much higher and that much faster. And, you know, we laugh about this when we're having a beer in Brandon in December at the conference.
[00:24:23] You know that. That's the hope.
[00:24:25] But I also want to give some context on where I kind of stand here as harvest continues to ramp up and also highlight why, you know, some of these crops, I believe, can have some bigger gains and some crops may be a little bit muted. So I'm going to give a point or two with. With each one.
[00:24:48] Again, I got to Put in the disclaimer like three times in this episode because just to give some more background here, like, this can all change quickly, right, with the wrong harvest conditions.
[00:25:02] And, and this can all change with, you know, a tweet or a message on X or a change in war stuff momentarily. It can all happen very, very quickly. So please, guys, just make sure you consult with your professionals there, the people that you're working with. And just remember that this is stamped in time on August 17th. Just remember, seek the advice of a professional.
[00:25:31] All right, now in my number 10 spot here now, we're going to go from worst gains and I'm going to do it by percentage to best gains. Okay? Worst to best. And no, Canola is not the top one.
[00:25:50] Unfortunately. It is not actually, fortunately, unfortunately, it just means that's rallied faster.
[00:25:56] But I've got Durham in my.
[00:25:59] With a 3% climb in price. I've got $8 a bushel as my number. So I'm going to try to give you the price that I'm using for now for a reference point.
[00:26:11] And I think that's a good thing because I even like with Canola, I had to incorporate a basis improvement. Same thing with wheat, a basis improvement in the mix. And so I'm going to do percentage over that price and hopefully that's helpful.
[00:26:27] Now, yes, we have seen a few less US Acres and things like that, but I think your biggest, wildest bullish card for Durham is the quality of the harvest here. And again, I'm, I without that, if it's a fairly normal harvest, I just wonder, I wonder where, you know, the big price increase is going to come from.
[00:27:02] It sounds like globally Durham is.
[00:27:05] Supply is, is comfortable, crops are, are pretty good. And maybe this is one where again, quality being kind of removed from this as a, is an impact where you kind of hold this. And it's the next cycle that sees that big price climb and it's all the way into next summer. But I've got Durham, you know, climbing 3%, not covering its cost of carry by, by any means on, you know, from the $8 level.
[00:27:37] Now, this is probably a victim of last year as well, because that's what it did last this last year, you know, maybe, maybe a bit better than that overall, but I'm basically very neutral Durham outside of quality concerns. Quality concerns come into the mix, then if you fall on the right side of that, you'll see those big gains over there. All right, so again, all these are positive.
[00:28:07] Magaderm is my worst gain, you know, taking the crop, storing it in the bin. I've got that as my worst gain right now. Quality being the outside factor there.
[00:28:19] My second worst one here. So in the number nine spot, I've got. I've got malt barley in the number nine spot and I'm using 625A bushel.
[00:28:32] Now. You know, if you're listening to this parts of Saskatchewan, you're going to say, hey, that's not. I'm not there yet. I'm lower than that. But you might be sitting there working with a end user like Rawr or one of those guys and you might be sitting there saying, well I'm higher than that already, but let's just use elevator bid. My area of Alberta,625 I believe is there today. The posted bids might show you a 610 or 615. I think 625 is there and I've got a 6% gain on that price. Again, 625 to like 650. Six hundred and sixty, something like that. And I am incorporating some harvest struggles in that mix. Okay.
[00:29:17] I'm not a big bull on, on malt because I think that the setup there, again, it's a space that we've seen a little less demand over the years.
[00:29:32] It's not a space that's very exciting right now in my opinion. I know it's due on the show last week and we had a fun conversation about, about malt and you know, the beer industry a little bit. But to me it's, it lacks any sizzle. I still have a price climb in taking a bit of harvest weather into that, poor harvest weather into that.
[00:29:54] I do expect to see a climb above the 625 closure. 650. 660 in this area. That means your local maltzers are going to be close to seven in that scenario. And Saskatchewan, you're probably, you know, elevator bids in the six low sixes on that one.
[00:30:13] All right, so in the. That was my number nine spot. My number eight spots feed barley at 8%. I'm using 575 as my price.
[00:30:23] I just had a question come in from the lunchbox crew. Like feed barley even for our farm too, like feed barley is a crop.
[00:30:31] I guess our farm would be closer to 550 would be the, the offer. Of course we've, we're growing malt so we're trying to get 650 and get that dollar spread.
[00:30:41] But feed barley to me is again, I feel quite comfortable with the, with the production coming across the prairies. I like this early demand, but I don't like storing it and I it to me, it doesn't cover its cost of, of I need to pay, you know, if I need to pay interest on my lines of credit and things like that. I'm going to be moving feed barley. I'm going to move feed barley. I'm likely moving malt barley. Unless there's a big quality concern and I'm on the right side of it, then I might hold it. But I'm moving my feed barley and moving my malt barley.
[00:31:15] Taking advantage of this early demand here and getting ahead of, of harvest pressure barley. Feed barley. I'm the most sold as a recommendation is on feed barley and I would continue to be fairly aggressive on that one. I've got an 8% gain in feed barley by throwing it in the bins from there. We're going to switch gears now to some pulses. We've got.
[00:31:45] I've got red lentils coming in. It's a tie with feed barley, but I put red lentils at 8% gain as well. I'm using 23 cents a pound there.
[00:31:56] I like Australia and Canada as a whole. I, I think we're. Again, harvest results will be forthcoming here, but I think production wise we're kind of okay.
[00:32:11] I'm hoping for some additional demand to come in. I expect that we're going to see a little pop in these, in these prices.
[00:32:19] But again, maybe it's one of those crops that you try to get more aggressive on in November or something like that.
[00:32:26] I'm just struggling to see, you know, where the big gain is going to come from. All right, I've got green lentils in the number 7 spot, right? We got 10, 9, 8.
[00:32:42] Pardon me. In the number 6 spot is green lentils. 10% climb in values there. Again, I, I think that overall there's a lot of good quality carryover for green lentils, don't get me wrong.
[00:32:56] But I've got a little harvest issue mixed in here, some lower yields mixed in and, and I think that can lead to a pretty fun appreciation.
[00:33:11] Not a fun appreciation, a decent appreciation in green lentil value. So I just wonder if there's enough less acres, you know, yield bit of quality that comes in and pops that up 10%.
[00:33:28] Yeah.
[00:33:29] All right. From there in the. We're making our way halfway down this list. I've got yellow peas.
[00:33:36] I'm looking for a 12% gain in yellow peas. I'm using 850 as my price. Those are the targets that have hit in my area. The, the yellow P market is starting to make its move here slowly, but, but surely.
[00:33:51] So 850 yellow peas for off combine.
[00:33:55] You know, I like the yellow P market, you know, coming in. If you're wondering like what is a 12% gain on yellow peas by storing them in the bin, it's basically a buck, you know, that's 950.
[00:34:09] I'm looking for some additional demand here.
[00:34:12] I should say, like harvest lows will be below this. We're using, we're scoring today's values for fall delivery. On August 17th. We are going to see some dips here for harvest, I, I would think and then from there some further appreciation.
[00:34:28] But that's what I'm looking for. If I'm going to take a yellow pea and store it, then I'm. My expectation is to see it appreciate by that buck and that 950A bushel that's starting to pay for carry there.
[00:34:46] That's starting to make sense. Green lentils I think could make sense.
[00:34:51] Yellow peas can start to make sense as well. You might hit 950 in February or something like that. It could be much sooner than next summer. But I do believe that storing yellow peas is going to be just fine this year. Now, again, you can see my bias creeping into some of this stuff. Durham was so quiet last year and I'm thinking it's going to be quiet this year. Year yellow peas, I don't have much sold at all for yellow peas. Right. So that's my position in this already. So I may be influenced by that on, on some of these.
[00:35:25] All right. In the number four spot. And I hope you're having fun with some of these guys. I hope you are. And of course, this will live on the Internet, so we'll be able to review it in future days.
[00:35:36] But this is where I put Canola.
[00:35:38] I've got a 15% gain in canola. But just hear me out though. Like a 15% gain in canola is going from $18 a bushel to like $21 a bushel.
[00:35:53] All right. Like that's, that's significant.
[00:35:56] And it's already rallied, you know, so much since this last Christmas here that it shouldn't be in the number one spot because it's already done so much of its, of its heavy lifting. Right.
[00:36:11] But a 16 or, pardon me, 15% gain in canola gets it close to 21 bucks. And I'm talking about $18 canola here for the fall.
[00:36:21] Now I like again, this one. I should spend the Least amount of time on because tight, tight carryover, expected things, you know, tightening up demand, staying strong.
[00:36:33] I hope it's bigger than that, but that is what I'm comfortable with right now on the canola front. So will I participate in that? You know, with futures, I think there's a basis component here as well that you're going to gain from now to spring. In some locations, a dollar a bushel in basis could, could be the gains out there. Right?
[00:36:55] We'll see.
[00:36:56] I've got lots of friends watching this and they're certainly going to let me know.
[00:37:00] But that could be half of the battle right there is on basis and then the other portion on futures, that's like $900 futures. And pretty not a standard climbing basis, but better than that, but not far off.
[00:37:16] In fact, you already actually, if we want to talk about notables for this week, you already have a dollar a bushel carry in this market for six months like canola. Some of the crushers are doing a pretty good job of saying, hey, keep something for me in late winter, I'll pay you to store this. I'll give you an extra buck to store this until late winter. Like that's pretty decent already. Okay, so that's in my number four spot.
[00:37:39] And the number, pardon me, the number 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 spot green peas.
[00:37:48] The number three spot with a 16% gain over the $9 a bushel.
[00:37:56] Now you could say, well, Brian, you gotta, you know, you only had green lentils at 10%. You should treat your green peas the same way. Well, this is my bias coming in here again a little bit because we have green peas on the farm. We have a little bit sold at 10 bucks.
[00:38:10] So maybe I'm trying to will this one into existence, but looking for, you know, around a dollar fifty a bushel klein in green peas, maybe a bit of harvest concerns on this one as well. But I, I think some of these smaller acre crops, like a green lentil, like a yellow pea, a green pea, they can see drastic price climbs. In fact, my top spot here, it's a small acre crop that could see some drastic changes. And so I'll stick green peas in there. Yes, I'm trying to will this out there as well, but I'm pretty comfortable storing those green peas and letting a bit of this demand come in to increase that price there.
[00:38:55] Now you're going to say, well, Ryan, you have not talked about wheat yet. Well, it's in the number two spot. A 17% climb.
[00:39:03] Definitely my wildest prediction Here. And my goofiest prediction, because that's again a $10 wheat, I'm using 850 as my number again for my region of the prairies, I'm 850 a bushel. And what was one of the titles on spring wheat a month ago now or something like that, like you know, $12, $11, $12 wheat, something like that. I'm, maybe I'm not that optimistic yet, but if this war stuff going on between Russia and Ukraine continues at this pace, then I would expect to see the global demand start to shift around here a little bit. Demand for Canadian wheat's been phenomenal the last couple of years.
[00:39:54] Maybe that continues, maybe that grows a little bit into 2027.
[00:39:59] And then you know, this move though for me, 50 to 10 bucks could happen in the next couple of weeks. I had a farm text me today say hey, like if this is a real problem, like is this long term bullish? And I was like not, not really because that wheat is still sitting in Russia and Ukraine has to move out eventually. And when it does, this gets ugly in a hurry. But you know, you could sit here and see the value of wheat really climb in the short term. So we might go from 850 to 10 bucks by October, right?
[00:40:33] It could be that type of scenario. Maybe not because then basis is going to fade that entire time.
[00:40:39] So they'll take it away from us. But we'll see. We'll see. Maybe it's lock in futures for late winter, early spring, let basis settle down and appreciate after the harvest glut here.
[00:40:54] So feeling a little bit, a little drunk on my, on my wheat prediction. But if all, if I have to look at all these Durham, that might be the most idiotic one because that one could go from eight to ten bucks in a heartbeat with quality issue.
[00:41:10] But spring wheats, the setup here for me is very interesting and I just wonder if that happens quite quickly. And then what I would do is I would sit there.
[00:41:20] You're trying to take advantage of a short term thing, right? Because they'll solve the shipping lanes eventually. So you lock in those futures and then let basis come at appreciate and come at you. If I could lock in futures in my trading account, that's what I where I would do it. And then let's the basis do the work into next spring and next summer and hold the line company's feet to the fire a little bit. Right? That's what it would do. Sure.
[00:41:47] And then my number one spot.
[00:41:51] And if Brad's listening to the Episode this week. He's going to love this. But I got oats in the number one spot, 20% climb. I'm using 375 a bushel for oats. That means oats go from 375 to 450 a bushel in my region. Some of you guys are already north of four bucks.
[00:42:11] Some. This might just be an easy one.
[00:42:14] Again, I, I think oat acres on the decline. You know, maybe some quality concerns here as well at harvest. We'll see. But I, honestly, I, I just, I, I think overall the oat millers didn't do a great job of, of securing supply. I'm already seeing a little bit. You know, the exception might be September where some old crop has been pushed into September and, you know, buyers are a bit more comfortable, but we're starting to see this develop and I feel pretty good about the price of oats climbing throughout the winter. Now, it's weird because you can get these really small facilities that, you know, are taking four or five, six trucks a day. They've got production contracts. The price just stays stuck forever until they chew through their supply.
[00:43:05] But I, yeah, I, I think oats have a little bit of a demand story that can be supportive. I, I think a little less production. Maybe some quality comes into the mix here as well. I like the setup in oats. Again, I, I don't have any oats sold myself for fall from a recommendation standpoint. So maybe I'm talking my book here as well, but that, I'm going to put that one in the number one spot. All right. So if you, yeah, if you, that helps pay some bills for you next year, maybe that, that's when you sit on as well. So just to summarize for my top 10, my worst gain, they're all gains. My worst gain was Durham, then malt barley, then feed barley, red lentils and green lentils, yellow peas, canola. Making our way to the best gains here, green peas, spring wheat and oats.
[00:44:02] Now those last four are between 15% and 20% gains. Again, a bit of a silly exercise, but as you, as we go here through our crop marketing, it's the factors that are present around the globe here.
[00:44:20] I just wonder if our plans change from, you know, price type targets to, okay, I need to, I need 100 grand that day. Let's get something sold. What should I sell here? Everything's kind of positive. Move that out and pay that bill and away you go. I just wonder if our crop marketing plans are changing here into 2027.
[00:44:44] All right, guys, I kept you way longer than I should have.
[00:44:48] So thank you for hanging out here for episode 139. No eating your veggies for this one, because that'll be later this week. This is a little bit of a bonus one, a little bit of a fun, goofy one to get out there.
[00:45:00] So again, strategy, subject, subject to change. Reach out to your professionals.
[00:45:06] You know, just make sure you're checking what's going on with these markets, because what I put down here today, hopefully it's different in a good way, bigger gains and better.
[00:45:16] But that's how I see it as we enter harvest here in the Canadian prairies.
[00:45:22] Until next time, have a good couple days here. I'll see you guys later on this week on Friday for the what the Futures podcast. My name is Ryan, and you guessed it, I'm out of here.
