[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, folks, welcome into episode 56 of.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: The what the Futures podcast.
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Yeah, Finley making his podcast debut.
You know, usually I'm in studio hanging out in the UPL studio. I will be a little bit later on today, but wanted to make sure that we caught Ryan Copperthorne from Cows and Control before.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: He's a busy guy.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: Telemarkets are hot. And that's right. Sometimes you have to pivot. So I've got my co host with me this morning on the podcast, Finley winter.
[00:00:32] Speaker C: You're right.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: 100 snowing outside and it is winter.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: All right, man, we got to get.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: You mic'd up for the next one. I think you got a lot to say.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: If you want to check out family.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Go over to the YouTube channel. You can see Finn making his debut.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: And shouting the word snowman.
No, man, that's right, man.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: That's a hundred percent it.
Good work. You're gonna be a natural on the show. I can tell already. Okay, let's get into the interview with Ryan Papentor.
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Hey, folks, welcome to the what the Futures podcast, your quick guide to better farming decisions.
All right, folks, so. So back in studio here this evening, I was.
It was really cool to have to have Finn join me earlier today. We were just. We're waiting for Ryan. We were just testing out our sound, and I thought, hey, I'm gonna record a little bit with Finn and see what. See what happens. And we did a couple of different.
I started the. The recording and stopped it a few times, but it was. It was cute if you get a chance. If you go to the. You to the video version, like, Finn is beside me. I made the mistake of putting all of his applesauce cups in front of him like a couple feet away. And subconsciously, I'm just opening these cups while recording with Ryan and Finn is. Yeah, you can go check it out on. On the YouTube channel. But it was fun. A couple things I want to clarify before we. We play the. The. The recording with Ryan Copperthorne from Cows and Control. I believe I say Mexico and South America when it comes to the screw worm issue, but what I meant to say was Central America. Obviously the US Is going to try to fix that. And then I think I called ranchers growers as well during that recording. So, yeah, raising. Maybe better to put there, not. I don't know if grower. I don't know. It just seemed kind of weird when I listened to it again. So anyways, ranchers, cattle folk. Yeah, if I don't know, I'll leave it at that. All right. Okay, so I want to clear that up and why don't we just keep moving here and let's get into our conversation with Ryan Copperthorne. Cows and Control, episode 56 of the WHAT? The Futures podcast coming at you.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: All right folks, I've got Ryan Copperthorne with cows in joining me in episode 56 of the podcast. Ryan, how's, how's your week going? How are you heading into the holidays? How's things going?
[00:03:23] Speaker C: Well, the holidays are coming quick. I haven't got any shopping done but my wife has so I guess that I'm half covered. But yeah, yeah, no, it's been, been an exciting fall. We got really good prices so the industry sure buzzing right now and, and yeah, the industry's buzzing and I'm nervous and that's, that's normal.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: Fair enough.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: Well, on the shopping side I'm in.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: The same boat as you apparently. I relied on Canada Post quite a bit in the past because I'm a little behind the eight ball this year.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: So I gotta, gotta get out and.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: Do some driving around and pick up a few things. But we got the kids covered. Got, got my co host covered here for sure. You need some wipes.
All right, Ryan, so like you said, the industry's pretty, pretty buzzing right now. Pretty hot.
I just maybe give us a bit of perspective on, on where futures are at and in relation to this last year and, and why things are so hot.
[00:04:26] Speaker C: Yeah, well if you look at the, if you look at the futures prices of cattle like the, the live cattle contract which represents finished cattle in the US has been bouncing up and down at the highs at this 190 level. It hasn't been able to break this 190 level. It's been going sideways for a year at the highs and finally last week it broke out.
It broke out sort of temporarily and made all time highs or matched its all time highs. But it still really hasn't confirmed that, you know, it hasn't really broke out beyond all time highs. It just kind of ticked the all time highs and then stopped. So it's kind of curious to watch.
And we got, right now we have I think the fourth highest managed money in the futures right now that, that we've had in 20 years or something. So it's a lot of funds are in the, in the cattle and long but it's not making these all time highs despite that. So that's why I say I'm nervous. I got a little, I don't trust it because if Those people start to leave the party, then this thing can roll over pretty quick. But, but you know, I won't, I won't say that's going to happen. I'm just saying that's, that's what I kind of keep my eye on. And, but other than that, like the cash prices are strong, the auction mark prices are strong. Bread cattle prices are strong. So it's, it's been a really hot market.
[00:05:53] Speaker A: So when you look at western Canada, I have prices like when you look over the last couple years, are they back towards some of those highs like the live cattle futures or are they making new highs across the prairies? What are you seeing locally?
[00:06:10] Speaker C: We're not quite at all time highs, but we're definitely getting back to the highs. We had a little dip in September, which is rare because normally September's when we have our highest prices, but we actually got a low in September and then it's been rallying ever since. And so prices are very near all time highs, which I say is, you know, I'm kind of confused by that with all the tariff talk and all that why we would be pushing such high prices. But there's a lot going on in the states that's kind of fueling that, I think.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: Okay.
And so when you start looking at tariffs and you start looking at why. I didn't want to bring this up necessarily, but there was. The first thing that comes to mind is that Mexican cattle were not coming up into the US Correct. Is it some type of, what do they call it?
Yeah, what's, what's the deal with that?
[00:07:10] Speaker C: So, yeah, it's a, it's a little fly that, that burrows in. It's kind of been around forever, but for the most part it was eradicated in the, in the states.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: It's okay.
[00:07:21] Speaker C: It's not going to affect us because it doesn't really seem to flourish in cold temperatures. But, but they found it in Mexico, so they shut the border down. And Mexico generally, like I think last year they imported 1.4 million cattle into the, into the U.S. system. And just to give you some context, like there's 12 million cattle on feed in the U.S. at any given time. So 1.4 million came into the U.S. you know, it's a lot of cattle, so it's 100,000amonth and they shut that down in November. And so that's really kind of fueled the feeder market right now. And on top of that Mexican screw worm, you also had some moisture come into the southern states and where their wheat pastures Are. And so all of a sudden people that were in drought now had wheat crops growing and needed to graze those crops. So there was a huge bid for feeder cattle. And those cattle had already gone into the feedlot because there was drought down there. So they were having a hard time finding cattle. And then the third thing that's been affecting really in Canada and the US has been taxes. You know, ranchers have made money this year, so they're all burying taxes by going out and buying cattle. Right. So that's been pushing higher too.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: All right, well, I saw somewhere like going back to that screw worm thing, the, the U.S. was accessing 160 some million dollars to eradicated in, in South America. Apparently it's Mexico south. So.
So apparently Finn and I are going to go through about six, six of these in this recording as well. So what's another one opened up?
[00:09:04] Speaker B: All right.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Okay. So yeah, the tax side, that, yeah, that makes sense as well, for sure.
So I've had, I've had a few farmers know, reach out to me lately and they said, you know, Ryan, with, you know, Trump entering the White House here in mid to late January with all this tariff talk, you know, what would happen if, to this cattle market, this local cattle market, Western Canadian market, if these tariffs were implemented or what's the chances of it being implemented? What's the risk? Any thoughts around that?
[00:09:42] Speaker C: Yeah, I've been thinking about quite a bit because I think, I think it's real. And like Trump, I know he bluffs and he blusters and he does whatever it takes to, to get you on your knees while he does in a negotiation, but he, he generally follows through. And he showed that in 2018, 19 with China, like he, he does.
It isn't just bluff, like he actually follows through with it. So you have to, you have to take it, the threat seriously. I think he's generally rational, longer term, but I think we have to initially assess that there could be a period where these tariffs actually come to fruition. And so I start thinking about what would happen in that situation. Well, a lot of the cattle and beef that we produce wheat domestically, but they're still, most of our exports go to the US and so immediately there would be a 25% price drop or a tariff on those cattle going to the states.
So that would drop our prices by 25%.
But what else would happen was that I think the US Futures would go up because they would see that as a restriction to imports, so the futures would rise and our dollar would have to drop. To compensate. So in effect it could actually neutralize the impact or neutralize the, the negative effect of the tariff. But all the same, I think that 25% tariff would be an initial shock or a hit. And so right now I'm getting clients to, to look at hedging for February and March. Just, just get yourself covered like with some Canadian insurance that, that covers that basis risk. Because I think, I think that 25% tariff is really basis risk.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. And so that insurer, that insurance, those insurance products are those.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: I guess.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: Where would a, where would a grower.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: Start to look at some of that?
[00:11:44] Speaker A: Where would you find those quotes or those numbers?
[00:11:51] Speaker C: Well, we have an insurance program called livestock price insurance. And so to give you an example, an 850 weight steer today is like $3.50 something cents right now. You can go out to March and lock in $3.50 as a floor price and it costs you 4 cents a pound to do it.
So to me that's like, it's almost a no brainer for me. Like when I look at that with all the risk that could come from that tariff. If you can lock in today's money all the way out to mark for 4 cents. To me that's a pretty pretty. You know, I, I would recommend that it's pretty simple idea.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that sounds very reasonable and logical as well.
[00:12:38] Speaker B: Like it's just. Yeah.
[00:12:40] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:12:41] Speaker C: And not only they only sell till the 19th. So we've only got till really till today, today and tomorrow to, to buy that.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: All right. Well, I guess I will put that in a email because this episode is going to go Thursday night at the earliest. So I will send out a. If you're okay with that. I'll send out an email to listeners just so that they have a little heads up because by the time they listen to this, it may be a little bit too late there. So is there the next opportunity to buy insurance after that date? Is there a different offering or is. Or is it just off the table until it's.
[00:13:23] Speaker C: It's closed until after the new year? I believe so.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: I don't have a whole bunch prepared here this week for what's on my mind in, in, you know, for crop marketing. I got a couple of things that stand out and I'm going to change this segment up for not what's cool in crop marketing, but more about what's on my mind from a crop marketing perspective.
And we'll see where it, where it goes.
I would say that I am in for 2025, I am optimistic. I'm optimistic on a couple of different, for a couple different reasons, but I'm optimistic not to say that I'm. I'm bowled up in any specific market. Okay.
And like what people want to hear is to, you know, analysts to be bullish and people to be bullish and everyone talk like markets are bullish. I'm not. I think there's still going to be a lot of pain as we go into to next year. But what's giving me some optimism is I got a whole list of new crop bids and see if I can pull them out of the lunchbox crew. I sent them earlier and I'll just see if I can pull them up real quick. But my, the bids I got were, when I compared year over year, they're very similar. And the one that stands out to me is green. So new crop, green peas. Okay, next fall, $12 a bushel picked up on farm with Act God.
That is the exact same offer as last year. Okay, We've got yellow peas, $10, 9 to $10 a bushel delivered across the prairies. No act of God on that. That's even not a shade better than where we started last year. I'd say it's very, very close. I've got red lentils, 29 cents a pound picked up on farm. I even saw 30 cents a pound as well picked up on farm. Some of that with act of God for red lentils. That's where we were last year, I believe. I don't have anything written down to highlight here specifically. I got maple peas, you know, at 14 to 16 dollars picked up on farm, depending on variety. I remember those maples doing the same thing. And flax, you know, it's 16, 1650 picked up on farm as well. A lot of this with act of God. There's, you know, feed barley offers out for next year. Of course, feed barley markets are climbing, but we got feed barley coming in. You know, we were like a 540A bushel picked up in Vegarville, Alberta. Like that's a little bit better than last year. Now I know canola is not looking, you know, not looking the same year over year. But you know, when I started looking at some of the specialty crops out there, I heard a malt price, a very specific variety malt price for next year at 650.
And that to me, that lines up pretty close. If I'm getting that feed offer in Veg Vagarville, that multi, it's not that far off. So it to me, it represents a little bit of stability, and that leads to a bit of optimism in my mind, because for the last couple years, I've been bearish. I've been looking at declines of 25%, looking at declines of 15%. And now I sit here and say, hey, you know, would I bet on a 25% decline in prices from today? No. Would I bet on a 10 to 15%? I don't know. I wouldn't. I wouldn't.
I think, you know, things can happen here. And in Western Canada, we have a Canadian dollar that's struggling for how long? We'll see. It looks like 68 cents is a support line, and we'll see where we go. But there are.
There are a bunch of bids out there for next fall that are out a little earlier than normal. And I don't know if I said bids earlier, if I called them offers, but Jason's gonna message me if I did. But bids. If there's a price out there, we're gonna call that a bid.
But there's bids out there. There's price action out there, and.
And it's giving me a little bit of optimism. Now, I was looking at, of course, Rabobank. They put a lot of research, and I didn't get a chance to read all the report, but I was just looking at one of their graphics, and they had palm oil as one of the top bullish outlooks into 2025. And then behind that was wheat, and then behind that was live cattle. All right, now, soybeans were at the bottom three. It went coffee, cocoa, and soybeans.
But for me, I don't know how Canola falls in between, because palm oil is a big influence on canola and all, and so are soybeans. And of course, we got lots of political stuff, lots of geopolitical stuff to hash out here in 2025.
But, yeah, the palm oil situation is tightening up. And I do like that in my past, a bullish palm oil market was a good sign for Canola. And then when I add to Canola a carryover, that's going to tighten up year over year. That's not bearish. All right, now we've got more shipping ahead of us. We've got, you know, a bunch of crush ahead of us as well. But I would pencil ending stocks at a fraction of what they were this last year. And with that.
That's good. That's a good. That's a good sign. And of course, you, the Western Canadian farmer, you're telling everybody you're planting less canola in 2025 and I'm sure you are going to plant less but hey that situation certainly tightens up. And then of course wheat was behind there as the second one and I, you know I was chatting with some folks the other day and I was given my, my wheat projections for next year which honestly folks, what is it? A squirrel finds a nut every once in a while and that finds a squirrel anyways like it's a wild ass guess stuff happens all the time.
But I like to try to figure out marketing path and you know with basis being as strong as it is with ending stocks in, in Canada being super, you know, super tight once again move a lot of weed out of this country.
Russia, the largest exporter is, is a step behind right now. We'll see how it all shakes out next year lots of time. But they're step behind with that winter, winter wheat crop not doing very well heading into dormancy. So that big exporter is, is, is not adding any supply. They're still, they're subtracting.
There was talks as well about the projection out of Ukraine being a little weaker here as well. And so you know I start looking at the wheat picture and with a low Canadian dollar and I'm like geez, like I think you know farms that were aggressive In June of 24, pardon me, May of 24 and in early June you know they, they sold a lot of wheat over $9, 9, 9 and a half dollars. Man. I, I don't know. This will be recorded and we'll live in the library but I, it wouldn't surprise me to see something like that again. And you know, yeah, I don't think that's that bad. Right. I don't think that's that bad. And so you know I start to look at, at next year and, and I'm starting to feel just a little bit more optimistic. Does it mean we're going to make a lot of money? No, not necessarily.
But can we turn into a, a break even a profitable situation? You know I, I do start to feel a bit better about that and it's not going to be easy, it never is.
But hey, I think it'll be laid out for us and it's up to us to execute. So we'll see, we will see what happens. The other thing on my mind here for crop marketing is I, I this time of year there the stress level.
So it turns, turns up a notch for growers and it turns up a notch because of the cash flow requirements that occur here. In December, January, February, March.
And so what happens is that you've, you've done a bunch of marketing, you've delivered on those contracts and now you, you need to generate more cash. But you're, you're trying to, trying to be a bit bullish. You're trying to be, you know, look for opportunity. You're trying to be optimistic.
And yet your, your window, it closes a little bit every day because you need that money by a certain day. Everyone has that day and you need that money by a certain day. And so you have a week. Like we just, well, we've just experienced a canola. You know, this is what the, oh, I don't have the chart in front of me. The fourth time canola's done, this move and then it's rebounded to 6:30 to 650 each time prior.
But then you see this move happen. You see wheat prices kind of stumble around, you know, yellow P bids disappearing. But you guys sold all those yellow P's a long time ago, so you're good. Specialty crops is not as severe, but it's again, sometimes you're phoning for like today for an oat bid and it was a Feb. March movement.
Well, you know, if I need my money in March, geez, I can't quite sign that. Like, what's the chances it's going to be gone and the money's deposited by the day? I need it. That pressure, it just turns up just a little bit more. Right? You guys know what I'm talking about on the pressure side. And so, you know, it's always the, to me, it's the most stressful time of year when it comes to marketing because of those deadlines. And I know it's not, it's not easy, but you know, what I would suggest here for growers is don't forget that on commodities that are traded, if it's a wheat, a canola, soybean, corn, whatever it is, there are broker or no broker, there are situations and scenarios where you can lock in worst case scenarios and give yourself some upside potential later on in the year. You can say, all right, I'm going to sell my spring wheat here at $8. Even though it's, you know, it's not the number I need. I'm going to sell for $8, I'm going to get it all gone in the month of January. I'm going to pay my bills. You can talk to your line company, talk to who you're doing business with and say, hey, how can I stay in this market in June or July or when the wheat market tends to rally. How can I get into that and see what they offer you? See what, what's available to you? Because there are those scenarios now. I think, of course, wheat basis, you know, continues to get better into spring and summer. That's not rocket science.
It's just strong exports and a low Canadian dollar. It just, you know, it's what I think happens. And then obviously spring is when wheat futures can rally. All right. And so I know that the stress is being turned up. I look at your mix of crops, see what you can sell here. What seems to be the market that's super quiet or doesn't show as much bullish potential. Get some of that going and sold. And I know you'll start to feel that relief as those loads go out and those checks come in.
But it's a stressful time of year, and it's the most stressful time of year. And it's when the phone calls happen. I, I need half a million bucks here by this date. And this market's not doing what I want it to. The wheat market between now and February.
Historically, I didn't ask Chuck about his seasonals to see. I think his seasonals actually show strength. But I, you know, I look back at charts, it's rough. It is tough going. We have demand and we have basis that's doing the heavy lifting for us right now.
You have bases continuing to get slightly better. Futures aren't doing Philly squat. But January and February are not easy months for, for Minneapolis wheat futures, they just aren't. Okay. Canola is a little different. It tends to go on a little bit of a rally at Christmas time. It can.
So we'll see if we can catch some support here at the 570, 580 level and then, you know, make our way back up to 6:30. Honestly, I, I did trade that both sides this last time, and you know, it again, you never know what's going to happen. But it seemed like, man, we keep doing this. Is it going to do it again? And sure enough, it did. So got lucky on the way up a little bit and got lucky on the way down. That's what, why marketing can be weird sometimes. Can be really weird when you're like, all right, I'm making a bit of money on the way down now, and it doesn't hurt as bad, but it can be, can be strange at times.
All right, what else is on my mind here? For crop marketing, I. In the Christmas episode, I think I'm Gonna do a bit of a crop rankings thing again. Using central Saskatchewan is kind of my, my, my area there, but I think I'll do that. And then I'm going to reflect on, on my predictions that I made in early January and see how close I've, I've actually, how close I got, I said on Christmas Eve in Saskatoon the prices are going to be XYZ and so I'll see if I can pull that recording and, and also just talk about that and see how close I got just for just honestly for, just to see. It's not going to do much. Just, it's just to see. All right, I think I'll leave it, leave it at that for what's on my mind here for crop market.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: Okay, so when the, so when the new year opens up again, when everyone gets back to work, like is, can you buy insurance like this price insurance not every day of the year, but on, on most days. Like would it go to a later month or something like that in the next offer?
[00:28:50] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, it opens up again after the new year, I believe so generally you buy it on Tuesdays to Thursdays. Every week they have an offering and then you, then you settle on Friday, I believe, or Monday, I can't remember. But you know.
[00:29:06] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:29:07] Speaker A: All right, Sounds good. Yeah. So what you're saying here is, you know, when you look at it, tariffs are implemented, futures, US based futures potentially rise with that because they've got less supply coming in. So that's going to climb and rise. So going and buying a put option, you know, on a live cattle is not necessarily, it may not do anything for you may, you may lose on both ends in that case.
[00:29:38] Speaker C: Yeah. The only, the only really way to hedge it is with this insurance program or with a forward contract.
And you know, the forward sales have been, been decent. The only problem, the forward sale is you've locked your upside. So if the futures really ran high, you know, right. You may not want to be locked in with a forward contract. So to me it's like this. Insurance right now is the best game in town for, for the Trump risk.
[00:30:04] Speaker A: You know, leaves your upside open, covers your behind. If, if things go, I don't know, I was gonna say south on you, but quote, unquote, suck on you.
Okay. All right.
Anything else kind of standing out? Are you, are you seeing, you know, in the industry, are you seeing those new ranchers show up or is there, you know, new players coming into the game right now, people expanding their herds? Like what are you seeing when you Chat with growers.
[00:30:37] Speaker C: I. I don't see. I was at a conference last week where I was kind of pleased to see some young people there. For sure, there were some young people in that audience. But, yeah, it's. It's still not growing. I think there's a lot of skepticism because, you know, people still remember 2014, 15 and 16 where we had our last bull market and the thing just fell apart on them. And, you know, nobody quite trusts its rally. But the fact that bred cattle are priced as high as they are is really encouraging. It says that people are willing to step out every cow that has a calf. I mean, a calf is 22 to 2500 bucks. So it's a lot of money, you know, and so all of a sudden, $5,000 bred heifer, she actually works, even though it seems ridiculous compared to where she was priced three years ago.
But as far as growth, I think there are some. There is some retention happening. I noticed the cow slaughter in Canada's way down. I don't know if that's because we're just running out of cows or whether it's because people are holding back cows. But, yeah, I've just started a service where I'm helping people market breeding cattle.
And it's interesting. There's more, still more sellers than buyers out there, I find.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: But.
[00:31:56] Speaker C: But we'll see what happens as we go forward. I think when people get convinced that this market is going to stay here, they might dig in a little more. I think everybody's kind of nervous about, you know, the market rolling over or what Trump's going to do or whatever. But I honestly, I think the market fundamentally is sound as long as demand kind of holds steady. And definitely we're running out of supply. So I think we should have a bull market for a few years here.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Yeah. And, you know, that to me is the important thing fundamentally, where do we sit? Because you're going to have geopolitical things that happen. You're going to have headlines that come out. And yes, they can be, you know, crush. Crushing at times. But, yeah, it just seems like, again, I'm not. I don't know much about cattle markets, but it's, you know, knock on wood, it's. It's got a nice feel to it right now.
[00:32:52] Speaker B: I'll just say that.
[00:32:53] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:55] Speaker A: All right, so I wanted to touch on.
On. On your. Your seminar here coming up. You.
You're getting some ranchers together here in January. You want to give us the details on. On the dates or where it's at. And I know last year I brought it up and you were sold out by the time I put out the podcast, but where are you sitting now? You still got some space and give us some of those details?
[00:33:21] Speaker C: Yeah, I do have space. It's, it's on January 21st, which is a Tuesday at the Veterinary Ag Health Services building in Crossfield.
And it's an, it's an all day seminar. It's just a hedge training seminar. So it's like basic training for understanding how to do cattle hedging. So we're going to talk about that insurance that we were talking about. We're going to talk about futures, we're going to talk about options, we're going to talk about a little bit of forward contracting. And then I have a simulator where we get to simulate scenarios like what happens if the market blows apart. What, you know, how do these tools work and how do they perform?
We talk about the Canadian dollar, we talk about hedging barley or corn prices because they impact the cattle prices. So it's really just to get people started or understanding how these tools work and allow you to play around with them a little bit.
[00:34:18] Speaker A: Yeah, awesome. Well, that sounds great. I, I think that simulation, you know, seeing some of these tools work is super important. So that's, that's great. And so how can people, if they want to, you know, attend that seminar? How can they, how can they get.
[00:34:35] Speaker B: A hold of you?
[00:34:36] Speaker C: They can reach out to me on my email, I think is probably the
[email protected] or I'll put a link on my website, cowsincontrol.com I on my website. I'll put a link for that training seminar where people can sign up for that.
[00:34:54] Speaker B: Perfect.
[00:34:55] Speaker A: Good stuff.
Just a last one for you here as well. Just switching, switching gears.
What are you seeing on the feed grain side right now in your region? Prices have, barley prices, corn prices have ticked up here a little bit recently. But what do you see it on the feed side?
[00:35:14] Speaker C: Yeah, I found that too. You know, the, the barley prices have been strong, steady strong, which is interesting to me seeing, you know, seeing the weakness in the grains in the US but generally I, you know, it's, it, it dropped. I think a lot of people were down getting barley for five and a half or something and now it's creeping back up to six in a lot of regions. But it's, it's, it's been steady, strong and I've been trying to figure that out too from that Trump tariff perspective. If we have to consider that if Trump puts these tariffs on, there's a pretty good chance that Canada could put retaliatory tariffs, and nobody's really thought about that one. And when you think about how much corn is coming across the line into Canadian feedlots, that could also be a factor that we have to. We have to consider is what if there was a tariff on corn imports put on by our own government, you know, so I don't know. You know, those are just. That's thinking down the line. But I. Those are type of things I kind of scratch around the back of my brain sometimes.
[00:36:21] Speaker A: Yeah, you have to. Right, because you're. There's.
It's never easy, but there's so many different things going on right now that, that have.
And have an impact here, so. A big impact. So there's just lots of stuff to be thinking about as we get into 2025 in the next couple weeks.
[00:36:40] Speaker C: Yeah, but the grains have been cheap. You know, like, that's been fueling the cattle market a little bit, too. Like, our cost of gains are good because of these grain prices. So it's made feeding cattle okay. The. The trouble I'm having right now is when I run the projections on cattle. These cattle are so expensive that they're not. Even with these low grain prices, they're not penciling. So I'm a little concerned that maybe our feeders are a little lofty right now. They might need to cool off a little bit. But that, That's. That's when I say I'm nervous. That's. Those are things I'm kind of nervous about it. I think we're just getting a little ahead of ourselves maybe, but.
[00:37:19] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:37:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: I used to do some work with the grower or the farmer that, you know, he. He has cows and, and grain as well. And he. He would just say, like, one will be. One will be really hot. One of the two is going to be pretty hot or doing a lot better than the other. And it's not often that they both line up. It does happen from time to time. But he set a, you know, diversified operation because there's a good chance one's doing pretty decent compared to the other one and kind of holding true at this time as well. So.
[00:37:54] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, short term, they. They trade contra to each other. Like, cheap grain makes the cattle go up, but long term, they actually track each other. I always say, cheap grain, cheap cattle. Because if grains stay too low for too long, then what happens is chickens and pigs start ramping up because the cost of gains are so low and then it, then that ultimately brings down the beef prices too. So they actually track each other over time, but short term they, they may trade opposite each other.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah, good stuff. All right, Ryan, anything else for us today?
[00:38:27] Speaker C: I got a new web Service, it's called buysellbreeders.com so if you're interested in buying or selling breeding cattle, check it out. It's just, I just got her up and just starting to promote it now, so.
[00:38:40] Speaker B: Perfect. Awesome, man.
[00:38:42] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate your time.
I like bringing in experts. I don't know anything about cows, so cattle. So thank you again for joining us. I know you've been really busy this week, but thanks for making the time and definitely connect here in the new year. Maybe, maybe we'll wait till after January 20th or 21st and maybe get together at the end of January, early February and see how things are shaking up.
[00:39:06] Speaker C: Sure. Sounds good.
[00:39:08] Speaker A: Hey man, appreciate it. Have a Merry Christmas.
[00:39:09] Speaker C: Yeah, you too. Thank you.
[00:39:14] Speaker B: So Ryan and I actually we stopped recording. We kept talking for a while and I should have just kept it rolling because we, we talked about how, you know, there's growers that have contracted their cattle into the US For February, March and if a tariff were to, to be implemented, like what would happen in that scenario. And you know it, again, it's a 25% haircut in that situation when you've contracted directly to the US and you're taking that money back across the border into Canada.
So I thought that was a super interesting comment. And then also on the insurance side, you know, this is just not Alberta based insurance for, for cattle, for your cattle price. It's also in Saskatchewan and we believe it's administered by the provincial insurance program there. So anyways, we kept the camera rolling or, pardon me, stopped it and we should have kept it rolling and we had a longer discussion about some going on. So that was cool. Now, all right, I got, I've got a whole bunch of stuff here. I've got. Well, let's, let's get to some housekeeping. So you're, you're going to listen to this episode probably on the Friday or the Saturday. Right. And so letters to Santa, they are due by Sunday, which is what, December 22nd. I need the files to the editor for December 23rd for a December 23rd evening or 24th release. So we're trying to do a little Christmas episode. So even though I got a little bit of holiday cheer here in the studio tonight, this is not the Christmas episode I have received probably about A dozen of them so far. And I've had some from some folks in their 60s and I've had some from a 5 year old Leo as well. So. So yeah, bring them in, send them in. I'm going to read a bunch of them on that, on that episode. The other thing we have the Lunchbox Crew. You know, if you're looking for some, you know, weekly content when it comes to crop marketing decisions and farm business decisions, that's open until December 24th. You can go to Ryanden Ca and check out the Lunchbox Crew. You got all the details on there. And we just open it every once in a while. Right. We did a June, we did one here right after harvest.
I think this might be our third, our third opening here, our third public one. So we kind of get people set up at the same time and then we close it off. The next opening. I, I don't know, probably before, maybe around planting or something like that, before seeding. All right, so there's that and the other thing too, the conference, which I'm still on, on a heck of a high here from the conference. We, you know, survey results came in. We got results, survey results back from the speakers as well. And just, you know, chatting with farms, like chatting with the people that attended this conference. I don't know if you guys can hear Fred.
Fred's our new member of our family here and apparently he likes to meow. We boots has vanished and Fred is here as his replacement and wow, this guy's singing a tune for me in the back. Anyways, the conference, you know, chatting with growers, you know, it's never perfect, but man did it was great. And we are, Yvonne and I are full on planning next year's conference right now. Like we have. We've already got some of the fine details dialed in for next year and it's going to be a lot of fun, a lot of education.
I got another speaker confirmed here today and we're working hard at it, all right, to get things set up. So tickets are $899 until December 24th. After that they move up to 1199. Okay. Now I'm not saying that they'll never go to some slight discount next year. At some point that could happen, but it'll never be lower than 899. Okay. And there's only 150 seats. 150 minus the ones we've already sold, which they're again every day. We're selling multiples.
So yeah, I'm not saying like I'M not saying it's going to sell out. I don't think it's going to sell out here in December. That'd be insane if it did. But spots are limited. And hey, our return policy is solid. So if it doesn't work for you after harvest, we'll figure it out. It's not, it's not a big deal. I just have to let you know that that price is here till December 24 and then it's gone. All right? And of course, if you're in the lunchbox crew, Regardless, you get 25% off whatever the price is. You get 25% off of that ticket price. All right, last thing about the conference, if you were in Drumheller, just a reminder, we are going to have an after party here on Zoom on January 14, 8:30 Mountain. If you're at the conference, you'll get the invitation for that. And we are just going to check in on your crop marketing plan. There's a lot of stuff going on in crop marketing right now. We're just going to check in, see how everybody's doing and try to answer some questions as well and, yeah, see where things are. I've got some other stuff I'm working on another little reunion for the Drumheller group, but I won't be able to announce any of that till much later this winter. But the wheels are turning, folks, and I got something in, in the cooker right now for another little reunion later on. I don't know, maybe. Maybe this summer. We'll see. We'll see if we can get some details out in a couple of months.
All right, what else do I have for housekeeping?
Yeah, I think we're gonna leave it at that. Here for episode 56. And now a big shout out to show sponsor John Deere. Did you know you have a precious commodity on your land? I'm not talking about crops. I'm talking about your data. Every day your fields and machines are giving you valuable data. And what you do with it can affect costs and yield potential.
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All right. My. Of course, my favorite segment of the week is Positive Moments. And you know, I've got a personal. Well, that's all personal stuff, I guess, but I'll just Start off so the first one for, for this week.
So I, I, so the farmers, again, thank you for your donations, your financial donations here to the silent auction and those that donated as well, the, you know, producer profit, Clarenback research, left field commodities.
The backsw, you know, we auctioned off of what the futures fridge, which is now sitting at Becker Farms. I think it's plugged in now for the holidays. I saw Riley was playing the what the Futures branded curling game.
So those folks, we raised 9,600 bucks. 9,680 I think was the total. And anyways, we peeled out a drum Haller. I phoned the Salvation army and said, hey, you know, let me know when we can meet up and we'll get you these funds. I honestly, I thought I could just e transfer and it would be fine, but they're not set up that way. Anyway, so I met Robert in, in Camrose this week and we met at the Tim Hortons parking lot. And I'm like, man, I wonder how I'm gonna put point him out. I'll just call when I get there and we'll figure it out. But in the parking lot, it's just this completely deckled out Salvation army van. So I'm like, well, that's my guy. It even says Drumheller on it. That's the, the dude, right? And so the thing is rusted out. It's had, definitely had better days. And you know, I said, well, Robert, you, you definitely stood out. Like, wasn't hard to spot you. And he said, yeah, it was a nice day. I thought I might take my car, but I thought I'd take this thing out and, and get it on the road. And so I'm looking at this thing, it's rushed, is dented it. Again, I'm not to make light of it at all, but when I was chatting with Robert, you know, he shook my hand, he said, thank you so much. You don't know what this means to us. And, and I said, yeah, hey, it's the holidays. And it was great. A bunch of people got together to put this on and I'm just the guy here delivering it. But honestly, it's the people around that that did it, right? And he says, no. He said, we like the Canada Post strike. He's like, we are old school. We do this huge program late in the year where we get all these, we mail out all these letters, these things asking for donations. And he said we do really, really well on it. Like, it's one of our biggest fundraisers. And he said, we're short 30 grand to the end of the year here. We're short 30 grand. And this came out of nowhere. We did not expect this. And it's just such a huge lift for us and for our, our team over at the Salvation Army.
They were. So we met on, on Monday was. Yeah, Monday, Tuesday they were delivering 130 food baskets to folks in Drumheller in the region that needed that, that support for, for the holidays. 130. You know, Drumheller is not that big of a place. And anyways, it was, it was very cool to meet Robert and to help with the Salvation army there. And again, good on everyone that supported. Now the second positive moment for the week. So of course I have a four year old and a two year old who made his podcast debut.
And so we, we did a family. We got up early and we went to Superstore to do like a big family grocery. All right. And so, you know, Will has been, she can write her name, but she's been telling us the letters to Santa. Like we've been writing stuff out for her and what she wants. And anyways, we got the kids stuff already where my wife is super prepared. I even helped out this year. And so we're in Superstore, we're going to do our groceries and we go past the toy aisle and Willa just puts her arms out and like stops the cart, stops everyone. And she says, mom, dad, that is what I asked Santa for for Christmas. And it's this play doh little ice cream cart thing. Anyways, that's what we ended up getting her. And we, of course we picked it up back in Poor Man a long time ago. And I don't know, by the time Christmas shows up, I don't know if she'll have changed her mind and been like, oh, that's not what I wanted. I wanted something else. I'm sure that's what will happen. But Chantel and I looked at each other and we're like, we got it. We nailed it. We nailed it. Christmas 2024. We might have nailed it here. So we'll see. Fingers crossed. But it was pretty cool to see her light up and for us to think that all the stars have aligned for Christmas 2024. All right, so that's two positive moments for the week. What was my third one? I had a Finley one for you guys. But I am, I'm losing track of all my positive moments here.
All right, I do have one more. So we, so at the conference we did these postcards and we had farmers fill out their address and then we recirculated the cards and had people write their kind of three takeaways and you know, as we review them because we're going to mail them out now. So you'll get, if you were there, you'll get one of these cards. So a different farmer has provided you with these, with these takeaways. And there's some that are definitely very, very funny. But there's a lot here with some really, really good tips. And I wasn't sure how people were going to fill these out or how they were going to respond, but you know, like, like it's cool to see and I think we'll maybe read them or not read them, but talk about them more in our social medias over the next little while. But the postcard thing was pretty cool and I'm excited to do that again next year. So we'll leave it at that for positive moments here.
All right, so eating your veggies here for this week. I, I've got the crop marketing handbook out. And so we did this, we actually did just each month we just put some checklist on things to focus on. So December. What did I put in December?
Create next year's crop budget and margin goals.
Now I'd say a lot of that's already been done because I do have that earlier. But I think it's just a refresh and so that's a good one here during the holidays just to do a little budgeting. I think everyone enjoys that between Christmas and New Year's, update your crop power rankings. That's a big one right now. If you've got, you know, if you've got all these fresh new crop prices like I talked about earlier in the episode, go and update them and see what you know, if there's anything that stands out for your farm. And then I put spend time on both short term and long term goals. A little reflection as well at the end of the year. But eating your veggies, I think those are fun also. You know, go do the Santa letter at the end of the day could win some what the future swag. I don't even know what's all left from the conference, but I know Yvon was like hiding swag so I'd have stuff to give away later on. But we've got these cool cups. We have these made from a local pottery shop here.
Yeah, I think it's. You call it pottery shop. Right. And so it's what the futures, you know, I've got, I've got four of these. So I'm going to give a couple of these away to whoever wins the Santa letter. Leo, buddy, you're five if you win, you have to either get mom and dad to save that for you or you know, get some hot chocolate going I guess is what you do for that one.
But yeah, letters to Santa, send them into with the futures gmail.com or wherever you want. You can, I'll see them if you put them on Instagram and tag us or Twitter. Wherever you put it, we'll find it and I'll read some of those in in the next episode. And then other than that, folks, for eating your veggies again, just dial in that crop marketing plan. If you need cash for the next couple months, dial it in, write down your plan and you gotta start executing. Okay, it's time to execute. And I know that you want to hope for stuff to happen and hope and hope. But at the end of the day, you gotta turn grain from in the bins into bills in the bank account and your dollar bills in the bank account. And so just start to execute on that plan and you'll, you'll start to feel better as well. All right, that'll be it for eating your veggies for this week. All right, folks, if. Well, thanks for hanging in here once again for episode 56. I really appreciate it.
If you found this episode useful, you know, please share it with a friend. You know, a farming friend.
Spread the word. Go give us a like or a subscribe or give us a rating as well. I don't know how it all helps. My editor says, Ryan, keep bringing it up because it helps when we get a subscribe or we get a A rating. So go and do that for me if you don't mind, over the holiday season. I would appreciate it. Apparently it helps me out in some way. Of course, Sarah, when we record it, we record the stuff usually on a Wednesday so things can change by the time the episode goes out. And so just keep that in mind. And with that folks, have a good weekend. You'll hear from me again in just a couple of short days. But the farm kid out of Dormy, Saskatchewan is out for episode 56.
