Wild Bids, Contract Surprises & John Deere Data That Pays | Guests: Sarah Cochet & Ben Longlet

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Grain buyer awareness. Here we go. Fancy contract for you to consider. Sarah's going to give us some insights on that. Of course, she's going to present on that later on this year at the Crop Marketing Make Cool conference. And I also have Ben, long live from John Deere, of course. He's with Harvest Profit Talk. Farm Financials. No better time than the end of June to get your farm financials in order. Let's get into it here. Episode 82 of the what the Futures podcast. Hey, folks, welcome to the what the Futures podcast, your quick guide to better farming decisions. All right, folks, welcome into episode 82 of the what the Futures podcast. Of course, recorded in the UPL studio each and every week. And I'll be at the UPL booth here at Egg in Motion in just a few weeks. Just a few short weeks away. All right, this is a bit of a. I'll call it the holiday episode. I'm. If you're listening to this, I'm camping with my family. Been gone all week. But I have two great guests joining me. I've got Sarah Koche with Trigger Grain Marketing. Sarah, am I saying that right? [00:01:12] Speaker B: Yep, you nailed it. [00:01:14] Speaker A: All right, perfect. And then I also have Ben Longlet from John Deere from Harvest Profit. He's gonna join me a little bit later on in this episode. Now, it's important, folks, to just remember that this was recorded on June 18 and that if we talk markets and market direction, we're both excited because the wheat market climbed like 20 cents today. Now, just remember to check in with your local experts, which Sarah is one of those experts. So if you're listening to this, reach out to her. Sarah, why don't you throw your email or some contact info so they can get the latest? [00:01:49] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. So anybody can call me anytime. I'm always open to chat. My number is 306-830-6787 or, or you can find my website, Triggergrain CA. Email is Sarah with an H at Triggergrain CA. [00:02:06] Speaker A: Perfect. Awesome. Three great ways to get a hold of you because in 10 days, you just never know what's gonna be happening in this market. Sarah, I hope they're just as exciting. [00:02:17] Speaker B: As they are this week. That would be great. [00:02:19] Speaker A: If I have to, like, project. I hope that, that I've made a wheat recommendation because that means that wheat has gone up like a dollar, right? So I'm, I'm hoping if I could project this, that I've made a wheat wreck. But I, I don't know. Fingers crossed. Yeah, fingers Crossed. [00:02:38] Speaker B: Amazing. And I hope that the Canola market continues on its tear. But for reasons aside from our own drought, I hope that we start getting some rain this weekend. [00:02:48] Speaker A: You've been on the show before. It's been a. It's been a minute, though, probably in the wintertime. Was. Was the last go around. You're. You're busy farming as well. You do consulting, but you also farm what is going on in your neck of the woods this spring. [00:03:02] Speaker B: Our crops look good so far. It's June 18th. There's no signs of suffering yet, but my farm hasn't gotten a rain since like May 20th. We got like a half an inch and that's it. So we went into it with good moisture. We seeded on the deeper side. Things have come up nice, but we're anxiously awaiting the inch that's supposed to come in a couple days here like the June 21st weekend. So if that doesn't come, I think things are going to start to turn the other way. But so far I'm not, not too scared about my own crops. They. They look okay. I work with customers kind of all across the province of Saskatchewan and halfway into Alberta. And there's a huge mixed bag out there. As of, as of today, I'm sure I don't have to tell any farmer that, that some guys have gotten five inches and some guys haven't gotten a drop. So it's interesting out there. It's kind of a unique one. [00:03:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Would you say like, like your area, like, is it the north that's a bit more concerning on the dryness or can you find kind of pockets where. Kind of wherever. [00:04:09] Speaker B: It's honestly, pockets. It's the weirdest thing. Like, north of me, like, like Meadow Lake area has gotten like crazy amounts of rain. And then if you go a little bit further south, crazy mounts of rain, like kind of pockets of lots, pockets of a little and pockets of none. There's no, like, real widespread areas because the clouds have seemed to be really like spotty, I guess unload in one spot and then skip right over the next. [00:04:37] Speaker A: Well, I'm having. I'm having a weird afternoon here lately. Storms are just popping up all around and it's like really intense thunder, but no. And super dark clouds, but no rain. It's just a. One of those ominous type of afternoons here right now. It's quite interesting. You kind of look up like, wow, that's crazy. Just thunder and nothing else and I don't know what's going on. So. [00:05:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. The other day we Were driving home and there was thunder and crazy clouds all around us. And I thought, oh, for sure, the farm's getting a shower. And we drove up and the road was wet until a half a mile from home, like, oh, geez, just right there, the road turned right back to dust. It just shut off right there. So I feel like that's kind of happening all over. [00:05:26] Speaker A: I. So our farm's going through similar thing. Like, we did get some rain here this last weekend. So it's coming, but same thing, right? Just nothing. Nothing for precipitation. And it's been impacting my crop marketing a little bit because I talked about kitchen window bias on the pot a few weeks ago. And I try not to let it influence me. But yet, you know, when you're chatting with, walking on the farm and walking in the dust, seeing what's going on with the crop, it's hard not to form an opinion, a strong opinion in one direction or the other. And like you said, it's pockets here and there and mixed all in between. It makes. It makes it really, really challenging. [00:06:09] Speaker B: So, yeah, it makes it hard to make decisions, too. [00:06:12] Speaker A: Yeah, 100%. So let's talk about decisions. Let's talk about consulting right now. You know, obviously the canola market, you know, comes back from the dead to some degree. I was so concerned, you know, I was in front of farmers this late this winter, highlighting all these bad things that were around us. And then little by little, they started to. We started to chip away and get some positivity, get a change in narrative. How. How are your farm clients kind of feeling right now? Are they pretty excited about how this market's starting to wake up? What are you kind of seeing out there? [00:06:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's hard not to get excited as a canola grower. Like, all the farms that I work with grow canola. So I didn't really expect to see what we've seen over the last, you know, five days here, this extra little leg of pop up. So, I mean, anytime you see a primary crop like that rallying up like a dollar in a week, a dollar bushel, it's. It's super exciting. The confidence hasn't been high to take bigger bites and make bigger sales yet just because the rainfall has been so spotty. So we're working with a lot of different strategies to kind of protect a floor, keep the upside a little bit open and layer in the prices. Because like I said a couple weeks ago, I didn't think, unless it didn't rain at all, I did not think we were going to see this kind of pop. So it's really exciting. It's really exciting for everybody. [00:07:51] Speaker A: I'm with you. Like, I'm with you on that one, thinking, well, if we do see this, it's because of a major production issue, and then we wouldn't have any bushels anyway to sell. So this is nice here. Hopefully these thunderclouds and this forecast produce some rains for everyone, and we get those bushels, too. So I had Susan Stroud was on the last. Last week's episode, and she said something along the lines of, we're talking about crop marketing when markets are high. And. And she said if you're not, as a farmer, if you're not sitting at the. On the edge of your seat, like, concerned about your production, like, if you're not doing that, something around, like, you know, when you're doing that and trying to sell, like, that's when the highs are, you know, like, you're sitting at the edge of your seat kind of worried about what's going on. That's when the highs of the market are and when you should be selling. And I feel like we're kind of on that right now, on that cusp. [00:08:47] Speaker B: So, yeah, I think, like, traditionally, the highs would have been, like, seasonally, the highs should have been behind us by now. So, like I said, this little. This little pop. The last week has been kind of. [00:08:59] Speaker A: A little bonus when. So when you, you know, farmers planted their crops and verified what they planted with you, your. Your, you know, clients, did you see any big change in acreage for the spring? Like the stats can report might come out the day of this episode? I can't quite remember, but did you notice a swing in acres, or was it kind of consistent? [00:09:21] Speaker B: Canola and wheat acres were very, very consistent with the people that I work with, and I think most of the people in my area, there was a little bit a movement a little bit away from peas and a little bit into some different specialty crops. [00:09:35] Speaker A: Okay. [00:09:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. So far, it's still looking like peas certainly aren't knocking anybody's socks off these days. But, yeah, I'd say canola and wheat acres are essentially the same. [00:09:48] Speaker A: When wheat was like seven and peas were nine, I was looking at it like, well, maybe peas weren't quite nine in that same area. Maybe they're 850. But, you know, the yellow peas looked a little rosier at that moment. But, yeah, we'll see. We will see. [00:10:03] Speaker B: But wheat's just so easy to grow, Ryan. It's So easy. [00:10:08] Speaker A: We love it. We love growing wheat. Like, it's the best harvest day when you're. It's a nice warm day and everyone's just cruising and the bushels are pouring in. So it's a good day. All right, so I want to talk. You're going to speak at the Crop Marketing Me Cool conference. We're going to get to that in just a second. Before we do, though, is there anything kind of that stands out to you from a buyer's side right now? Like, you, you have a, you know, your past, you were a grain buyer. You know, you've worked for a few different companies on that side. Like, is anyone standing out as being like, ultra competitive or somebody stand out with like a really good, good aggressive type nature? Or is there anyone that's really sitting back that you're like, man, do they not want to buy grain? Like, what's going on? [00:10:58] Speaker B: I could probably talk about this for hours and I could probably tick a lot of people off while I'm at it. So let me try to put this nicely. [00:11:08] Speaker A: We could take a few people off. [00:11:09] Speaker B: But, yeah, every single elevator that I deal with, they all have their really competitive days and then they have sometimes weeks where they're just not even being fair to the farmer. And if you're gonna phone in and take the spot price on any given day, it's just, it's not even a fair bid or a fair price. I guess just like doing, doing research or having somebody like me do the research for you, like on a daily or weekly basis can pay off so huge these days. Cause like I said, they'll. They'll have their one day where they decide to buy, you know, several, like a train's worth, and then the next day they just shut right off and their basis goes wide. So today generally there's ADM crush plant in my area and generally you can, you can just phone them up and get the best bit of the day. Um, they did the same thing that all the American ADM locations did with their soybeans, but with. They did this at their Canola crush plant. They rolled to November futures off July and they've left their basis at a -25. And head office has told them they're not allowed to push basis or trigger anything. Right now they're just sitting back and waiting for the competition to follow suit, I assume, or waiting for the grain to just come to them. So for them to not be leading in the Lloyd Minter area is an anomaly. They are usually always have the best bid and everybody else has to kind of step up to the plate. So that's kind of a weird one right now. [00:12:38] Speaker A: Do you think that we're. We're just kind of out of canola in that area? So they're like. Well, there's not much out there anyway, so they're just sitting back. I don't know if that's something we can figure out. [00:12:48] Speaker B: They're not out of canola and I'm very positive that they're not covered for their crush needs until new crop. So, yeah, in my mind it should just be going the opposite right now in the middle of June when, you know, there's not a lot of canola out there. They should be trying to get their hands on as much as they can at no point. I mean, we're low. We're very low on canola, a lot lower than most years, but we're definitely not out yet. [00:13:13] Speaker A: Yeah, okay, fair enough. I. So just going back to your point there, I guess before I say this, I'll just add. So you're seeing a huge variance in prices being offered. Like, you know, wheat, specifically canola, whatever it is, not. They're not all within a nickel is what you're saying. There's some pretty wide gaps. [00:13:32] Speaker B: That's right. Huge gaps. And you gotta seem to catch them on the right day. [00:13:37] Speaker A: Yeah, that's my. I got two comments to that. I had one comment a farmer set a target. Two elevator, three elevators in town set a target at one and then the other one had a special. So he was gonna go over the next day and put the target there. And I said, no, no, no, no, just wait, just keep it where you're at because they'll be done today and then it'll come back. And where you had it originally is where you should have it. So still hasn't triggered yet, but actually today it should have actually. With that big 15 cent gain in. [00:14:06] Speaker B: Spring wheat, it seems like wheat is moving. Like they're still looking for wheat probably as their sales pop up. They are still needing to fill those trains. So the basis has been great. And now that features have popped up, the prices are really quite decent. But only on the days that they decide they want to pay up. [00:14:25] Speaker A: It's gotten to the point for me where with the lunchbox crew, so farmers across the prairies where I'm like, I have one more wheat recommendation to make for old crop. But what I need everyone to understand is that here's the price range, but your area, like, I don't know who's going to be hitting this price on what day? But this is what you should aim for. I was like, I just want everyone to be, like, 100% sold at this price. I just can't exactly pinpoint the day on when it's going to happen. So it's been really, really tricky. Do you think that this is grain buying moving forward? Like, do you think this continues into later this year and new crop into next winter? Like, is this what we're in now? [00:15:10] Speaker B: It kind of feels like it. I feel like it's been moving this direction for a while, and this year it feels a little bit more amplified. But I wouldn't be surprised if this is what we can expect going forward. [00:15:22] Speaker A: It's everybody. And so I would say, like, I like, you kind of see this when. When there's a product that's a bit short, like, when, you know, there's something that there just wasn't a lot of. And then one elevator would really stand out because they had an order that they had to fill, and away they went. But this is everybody. And it's definitely on wheat. Seen it on yellow peas as well, obviously on canola. But it's every. And there's wheat out there. There. There's always wheat out there. It's not like we're short wheat. Yeah, it'll be tighter, but it's kind of weird. Like, there's wheat everywhere all the time, so it's confusing. All right, my last comment on this one is, I'm gonna say Richardson, because this did happen out of Richardson, but farmer has a target triggers, goes to hall, fills the contract, and then says, well, I'm going to clean out now. I don't know what I have left. Pretty common thing on the farm. Right. You don't want to over contract, because when I do that, my dad gets a little bit. Little, you know, it's a little fired up with me at times. And so they said, yeah, yeah, just bring it in and we'll, you know, we'll handle it as it comes in. His contract originally was like 8, 8 80. All right. So he hauls it in on the same day. They throw a $9 wheat special out. But they settled his loads before. So he hauled it in. Settled his loads at, I think it was 8:30 a bushel. 8.40 a bushel. Let's call it. Let's even call it 860 a bushel. Let's be friendly to it. Settled it at that. The spot bid, and then they threw a $9 special out. Right. At the same moment. And he's like, what's up with that? And I'm like, yeah, it's just. [00:17:12] Speaker B: That's acceptable. [00:17:14] Speaker A: You think you'd get the benefit of the doubt, right? Like, you think you'd get the benefit of the doubt and the buyer there, because they have the merchants in house. They were just saying, oh, let's just make this optically look good. And nope. He asked. He's like, hey, I, yeah, in my. [00:17:32] Speaker B: Mind, like, futures didn't rally 70 cents that day for them to have the 8:30 to $9 difference. So what's the difference between. You were willing to pay the higher basis to hit that $9, you know, two hours later, just for the pr, for the, for the relationship with the farmer? Like, come on. [00:17:55] Speaker A: That's what I went back to as well. I'm like, hey, if you want to be like, buy the book and you say I'm hauling this spot, that means something different. I think you have to be aware of what you're saying. But as optically and as buyers, I tell this to farmers all the time. They're out there selling. They're out there selling, right? And you get to vote with your. You just say vote either check, but we kind of vote on where you're going to do business. Like, it's still a human element to this and trust and sales. And I'm like, that's just a super easy one that you turn into. Hey, just so you know, this was our spot bid, but this special came out and I'm going to. I'm giving you this price a big happy situation. Maybe it definitely leads to good conversation, some more business down the road instead of the, oh, yeah, we're. Yeah, we're just gonna take our pound here at this moment and you know, you know, see, see another day, right? Like, just. I don't know, it was, it was. Didn't feel very good. [00:19:00] Speaker B: It's unfortunate. It feels like there's more of that going on than. Than the happy stories. Lately. I've been in a few frustrating situations like that as well. But I will say there's been the odd time and the odd grain bar that has gone above and beyond this spring. [00:19:17] Speaker A: Oh, for sure. [00:19:18] Speaker B: I just, I just phoned G3 this week to sell some new crop canola. And I didn't expect them to push basis at all because honestly, they don't really have to. The futures have done a lot of work and I just asked because I always ask if they can do any better and they gave me another $10 a ton on basis. Just because I asked nicely. [00:19:38] Speaker A: Just nice. [00:19:39] Speaker B: D3 Maidstone going above and beyond. Sometimes. Sometimes. [00:19:42] Speaker A: There we go. There we go. A little positivity in the grain buyer conversation. It gets nobody, you know, nobody wants to talk about this. It gets sensitive out there, you know, the people listening, it gets a little tense and. But this is just how business happens. And thank you for putting some positivity in here as well, because there are many positive things that happen. So good on you. Prop Marketing Made Cool conference in Moose Jaw this year. You were on stage with me and Drumheller co hosting, and I am begging and pleading for you to co host again with me this year because as you know, there's a lot going on on stage. So I need more than one person up there. [00:20:25] Speaker B: I would love to be there and help out again this year. It was so much fun last year. I think that the farmers that came, they found like a ton of value in it. And it's a lot of work on your end too. So I'm happy to help. I'm happy to be there. I'm happy to put on a. A breakout session. [00:20:42] Speaker A: So your one second pause there. I don't know if it was my Internet connection or if you paused, but you. Yeah, my blood pressure declined for a second there. But yes, it's a pile of fun, obviously. Great content, great speakers, awesome farmers in the room. And yeah, the feedback was more than I could have imagined last year, the positive feedback coming out of it. So. So we're going to put you center stage once again this year. But why don't you just give me a little inside look at your topic that you want to cover at the conference in Moosha. [00:21:21] Speaker B: So I want to go over in as much detail as people want to hear all of the different contracting options that elevators have available. Some elevators, it's a lot. And some elevator companies, it's absolutely none. And not every farmer has a brokerage account open yet. Or not every farmer is interested in having a brokerage account open. So there are quite a few kind of cool options at a couple different elevators and I want to do like a deep dive into how they work. Another reason why I want to do this for farmers is because a little bit of negativity. I find that sometimes the grain buyer that picks up the phone, the one that was assigned to you or whatever, doesn't always have the best understanding of how those contracts work. Sometimes there isn't quite enough education on them yet. So, yeah, the farmer needs to be educated and sometimes it's hard to, hard to get there. So if I can add a little bit of value to the conference attendees in that regard, I would love to do that. [00:22:30] Speaker A: Well, this was. We were supposed to tackle this at the last conference and we didn't get to it. And I asked some brokers, you know, what percentage of farmers like have a, have a brokerage account. And the highest number I got back was 15% 1 5. And I got a bunch lower than that. I got one, I was like 5% one was like 10%. 15 was the highest. So I'm going to use that. That means 85% of farms out there, you know, are not utilizing a brokerage account. I'm not here to say is right or wrong. It's unfamiliar and there are amazing stories and books that have been written about some of the, the errors and the issues of past years. Like a couple decades ago, what happened. Right. But like, I know for me having that account right now on our farm, like we've been executing strategies based off the very little precipitation that we've received. And anyways, so this topic is super important because the language out there, you could have three grain companies show up with the same contract, but they have marketing departments, so they've named everything differently and they all have different explanations trying to get to the same end goal. So I. We might have to do like two. We're definitely going to do it twice. We're going to have to get you to do it twice. But there like, there might be a part one and a part two to this because it's not just like here's two things that are out there. Like, you know, there's. [00:24:20] Speaker B: Well, yeah, and some of them are going to take a while to break down because some of them are actually really quite complicated and there's lots of little like nuances and rules and you know what you have to do what you're allowed to do, what you can't do. So yeah, we'll see how, how, how well I can hold everybody's interest when it comes. Some of them are kind of boring, but I find them really interesting. So we'll see how, how deep I can get into them. [00:24:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I think putting up some scenarios and then throwing what a couple. I don't think you'll be able to get to it all, unfortunately. It just, it's too much. But, but I think throwing up scenarios and then how to approach them is going to be awesome. I'm trying to find the text from my dad and my brother. We had a rep shop at our farm. And they threw a contract in front of them with a bunch of fancy language. And I just got the can you handle this text? Here's the info. Can you handle this? Then I was looking it over. I'm like, you guys didn't do this right? And they're like, no, like, good. Because you're, you're committing like double the bushels if this actually goes through. So like we're in a drought, guys. Remember that. [00:25:38] Speaker B: So imagine having a rep bring that to you that doesn't actually fully understand that contract. So they're not able to fully explain to you how many extra bushels you could be committing. Like, it's kind of scary. [00:25:53] Speaker A: Oh, I'm sure they'd be very tolerant and lenient and just let you out of that. Right. Tongue in cheek. [00:26:06] Speaker C: So. [00:26:09] Speaker A: When you were buying grain, did you have some of these tools available to you? Could you go and phone a farmer and say, hey, I got something for you? [00:26:18] Speaker B: A lot less than there is today. I worked for Vitera and adm, and Vitera's come actually a really long ways in the last little while with their tools. When I worked there, you could get a put or a call basically on a minimum price contract. And I think that was it. And ADM would do a few things. Actually, they've gone the other way. They used to do a few options for you and they, they only have. I could be wrong here. Now they just have an averaging contract, like a daily average price contract and nothing else in Canada. [00:26:59] Speaker A: My in the jar to 21 at ADM. My call options there paid for my, my buyouts. Like those calls were well in the six figures. Like it was a big number. And yeah. Anyways, I, yeah. So when, when I was, when I was buying grain again, first year about grain, we sell the Canadian Wheat Board. Right. So I'm going back a couple of years here, but I work for another company as well that had. Probably has the most tools out there and there's a budget associated with this. Like here, here is. Welcome to your Monday morning meeting, have a cup of coffee. And by the way, this is what we're selling this week. Here's your training on it, here's your conversation on it. And everyone has to go out there and do whatever it was, go do a contract, go do five contracts, go do whatever it was. So I want people to also realize, and I'm not saying this is a good or a bad thing, like obviously that's part of a sales role to go and sell something. But don't forget that. That there may be some incentive. Either a commission, a bonus. Maybe it's, you know, you go buy a last truck I bought. I asked the salesman, what are you going to get for commission on this deal? And he's like, yeah, we don't really do that anymore. He's like, on Friday I get to pick an envelope and it's got a prize in it. I'm like, oh, all right, that's different. But whatever. And anyways, there's a carrot there, right? So don't forget that it's not just, hey, I'm here as your risk manager, your friend doing this out of the goodness of my heart. Maybe they are. Maybe they are at times. But oh, Sarah, I can see this is going to be a spicy episode with everything we're talking about. So. [00:28:50] Speaker B: Oh my goodness. So I just can't. I know, yeah, everybody has a job and everybody has to hit their sales targets or whatever. But like, I just want your listeners to remember that that contract may never be right for you. Or it might be right for you in the fall, or it might be right for you next year, or it might be something that you don't want to touch with a ten foot pole. And it's just so important to talk to people or like, you know, call me, call Ryan, like have conversations with like an unbiased third party because. Because a salesperson may not always have your, your best interest, your farm's best interests at heart. [00:29:32] Speaker A: Now, we can also talk about the positivity on this. I know you and I were talking a couple of weeks ago. I know that you did some really cool things with some of these contracts and participated in this Canola rally. Like there's a lot of good here as well. We can't forget about that and not talk about that. Yes, you're right. There's a time and a place for a lot of these. You just got to know what you're committing to and what you're getting involved with. So I think it's a phenomenal topic. I don't know how we're going to. I want to make sure it gets enough time to really get somewhere. And so I don't know how we're going to pull that off. Multiple sessions, how it's going to work, but I'm really looking forward to that one. [00:30:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm excited to put it together and get that deep dive into these things. [00:30:22] Speaker A: So, Sarah, I appreciate your time. I appreciate your perspective from Boots on the Ground, on the farm consulting and working with farmers in, in Alberta and Saskatchewan here and. And of course, your past expertise as a grain buyer and what you're doing at the conference here. So I appreciate your time this week. Thanks for coming on on the podcast. Anything else you want to talk about before we let you go? [00:30:46] Speaker B: No. By the time this comes out, I hope that we've all received a solid inch of rain and our crops look fantastic. [00:30:55] Speaker A: I'm with you. I'm with you. Let's have a nice end to June here and a great start to July. So thanks again, Sarah. Have a. Have a good summer here. Talk soon. Take care. [00:31:05] Speaker B: You too. See you. [00:31:09] Speaker A: All right, folks, again, this is a vacation episode because I'm so camping. I'm out camping with the family, so we're not gonna do. We're not gonna do much for eating your veggies. And a market update. I will have some closing comments after my conversation here with Ben Longlet from Harvest Profit over at John Deere. Of course, Farm Financials, very close to my heart here when it comes to my role on the farm and Harvest Profit, something that we use each and every, pretty much every day. So let's get over to the conversation here with Ben. Of course you can find their information, harvestprofit.com and again, I cannot stress enough. When you get a canola rally like we've seen in the month of June, and you get to watch those numbers climb, you want to take a little emotion out, see some real numbers, might help you pull the trigger here on some of that grain. All right, let's get into it with Ben. All right, folks, I've got Ben Longlet joining me this week on the what the Futures podcast. He is with Harvest Profit digital specialist Ben. Welcome to the what the Futures podcast. [00:32:20] Speaker C: Thanks for having me on, Ryan. [00:32:21] Speaker A: I'm a big fan of Harvest Profit, Ben. We use it on our farm. It's something. It's. One of my goals for 2025 is to become this, like a super user of Harvest Profit. And I'm not there yet, but I'm improving. Every month I'm improving, and that's important. I'm going in the right direction. So I'm excited to have you on the show. I wanted to just kick it off right away. You talk to farmers all the time. You've actually been in my backyard doing presentations as well. You travel around. What are farmers sharing with you when it comes to the impact that this financial platform is having on. On their operation? [00:33:03] Speaker C: Yeah, so I get a lot of experience talking to farmers firsthand, hearing exactly what they've seen Harvest Profit change in their farm and a lot of the questions or a lot of the, I should say the answers we get from people is that, you know, Harvest Profit has helped them dig into their farm to a different level, a different financial lens. It's given them to look into their numbers from a different perspective. Maybe, you know, we focus on farm drilling down to that crop year and farm level financials. So we actually understand not just what cash flow came in and out during a fiscal year. We're looking at what actually, what did it take to build that crop, what did we, what did we get for revenue from it and break that down to that crop level, acre level, entity level, and really give that in depth view of all those financial metrics. [00:33:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I, you know, I'll, I'll speak on some personal experience here, but for me, take some of the, takes a bunch of emotion out looking at numbers, takes a bunch of emotion out on what we're doing. But being able to break it down, break it, break it down by, by crop, by field, by landlord, I don't know, it's just very, very powerful. So. All right, Ben, so tell us a little bit about yourself, your journey. How do you get to be a digital specialist at Harvest Profit know where do you come from? Tell us your story a little bit. [00:34:25] Speaker C: Yeah, so I, I started out growing up on a farm in Amenia, North Dakota. So that's just northwest of Fargo, North Dakota, where we're based out of right now. Out of our office. [00:34:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:36] Speaker C: And so grew up in the fat farm background. My schooling kind of took me through this precision ag degree, went to Lake Region State College in Devil's Lake. Ended up working in the seed industry, doing some different things with mostly precision, any background. So, okay, you know, that was that time frame of really getting into new technology. Variable rating drones, different imagery type stuff. And as I was looking for a way to continue my career and also be of, you know, help on the farm yet too actually got connected with Harvest Profit about, I think about seven years ago. So it was December of 2018 when I started on this journey of working with farmers on profitability. And at first it seemed like kind of a different path, but when we look at Harvest Profit today, we're so deeply connected to that farm data. Understanding what was applied, where, how much was applied, whether it's variable rate, how you're doing things. And really it's come full circle now I've just combined the financial aspect to the precision side. [00:35:40] Speaker A: Awesome, I appreciate that. So your journey over at Harvest Profit, I have to think 2018 to 2025, you've seen some extreme market moves, financial position adjustments, changes throughout that time. How do you view harvest profit and those conversations with farmers here in 2025 compared to maybe something back in 2021, 2022, how has that evolved over time? [00:36:12] Speaker C: Yeah, being that we serve a large area, it's kind of unique. Sometimes these ups and downs and egg can be geographically focused, but overall we do see, you know, as, as things change, we see that farmer sentiment change. You know, when you kind of call with a guy and start talking about financials, when we're at the height of, of of crop prices versus maybe at the lower end, those, that, that tone changes. But what we see is as time goes on, we see that people are more interested or they feel that the need is greater to be more detailed in their financials and understand that working other farmers and treating it like the true business that it is, you know, it's. Farming has changed a lot over time. It's gotten a lot more. I don't know if complicated is the correct word, but we've gotten a lot more digitally advanced. And as that comes along, farms are growing. The amount of money it takes to grow a crop and invest into a crop is growing. And so the risk is obviously higher too. So what we see is just like as that time comes, when things get a little bit tighter, that focus on being even more dialed in on your financials is increased. [00:37:19] Speaker A: Yeah, 100%. Our farm right now we have. We're in a little bit of a dry weather issue, a bit of a drought situation going on. It's early. Right. We're still optimistic, but, you know, we were talking about figuring out our chemical application here. And you know, it's 350 grand that we're talking about. It's a big number, right, when it comes to making these decisions and timing. But anyways, I'll digress. What have you seen? I don't know if this is a fair question, but what have you seen from maybe demographics, but like, has the user based, has it evolved over your time as well? Is it all scopes, farmers from every, every area, every background, every age group that are engaging. Has that changed at all over the last, you know, five, six, seven years? [00:38:08] Speaker C: Yeah, I think you'd be surprised. You know, we, we do, we get farmers of all different stages. You know, we have people that are just starting. We have people that are nearing retirement. You know, it could be that they're, they know that they're going to be Winding down the business and they want to have just that kind of extra grasp of the, the numbers and, and really like there's no time's a bad time to get started. So whether you're at the end of your career or at the beginning of your career, you know, it's, it's always good to be more in tune to the, to the background of your business. But you know, I do see that that younger generation that's coming onto the farm, they do feel that maybe they're more connected to the numbers side of it, they're more business focused. They're maybe not the type of farmer that we think about 20 years ago that just wanted to work in the shop and drive the tractor. We're seeing this kind of generation of people that are more, maybe the business minded people joining ag. But I think that's partly to do with just the mechanics of it today. Like we've talked about, you know, those are some big, some big numbers when you look at what it takes to run a farm and that we're seeing that shift to that mindset. [00:39:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I want to circle back to something you said there about you know, never a bad time to get started because as like if you, like if, if Ben was going down the road and looking to buy a business, that corner store of some sort, whatever it is, you're looking for that track record in those transactions, right. You're looking back to be like, oh, has performance been the last number of years? And if you can have a little bit of that data and those numbers like it could be pretty powerful as on the later stages of your farming career. So. Yeah, I don't know if you agree with that one Ben, but I just wrote that down as we were talking. [00:39:52] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean it's hard to make changes if you don't know what you're changing. You got to be tracking your numbers to be able to improve on them. So that's a great point. [00:40:02] Speaker A: So I want to dive into harvest profit now in just a little bit more detail. Why does it exist? Why do we have harvest profit? [00:40:10] Speaker C: Yeah, we saw a need for people to understand their cost of production better because it's like when it comes to making those marketing decisions of whether I should sell grain today or not, if you don't know what your cost of producing that product is, it's a hard decision. And like you said earlier, it's emotional. There's a lot of decision making that tends to be emotional in egg. And you know, when we started harvest profit or when the Business started, it was the mindset of we want to ease that emotional decision making and turn it into like, let's use the facts of our business to make these decisions. [00:40:42] Speaker A: Yep. [00:40:42] Speaker C: You know, we hear stories of people that talk about at the height of the grain markets, they were scared to sell because they might miss out on the opportunity of it going higher. But when you don't realize, if you don't know your numbers and realize that that opportunity of selling at that high point is bringing you in this much profit, you know, until you can understand that in your business, you're, you're good, you know, it's going to be an emotional decision. And so that's kind of where the big need comes from, is there's a lot of decisions to be made on the farm and they all tie back to the numbers at the end of the day. So let's use this data that we're already collecting, put the numbers to it and just help ease the mind of producers as they're making these decisions. [00:41:20] Speaker A: Yeah, 100%. I. That was a generational wealth generating event. Right. That was, that was big back then. Man. If I could just turn back the clock just a little bit here, tackle that. Just slightly different. But anyway. All right, good stuff. I want to tie in now. What, what. One of the things that got me excited so, so just to give some perspective, so I, you know, I'm from a farm perspective. I am the crop marketer, the gatherer of input prices, fertilizer trends. That's my contribution to the farm. That's what I focus on, the numbers and selling the stuff and buying the stuff. My brother, a couple years younger than me and he's the golden child because he's the one who could fix anything. He's the heavy duty mechanic and he makes the operation flow. And what got me excited was that his excitement for John Deere Operations center and how that can impact and influence what he's doing on the farm. And then for me, looking at harvest profit and seeing those two tie in so well together. He's excited about the operation side, I'm excited about the number side. But we were able to kind of get on the same level here about our, our, you know, financial position plan on the farm, just integrating those, those two. I want to talk about, you know, John Deere Operations center and how that ties in with harvest profit. [00:42:58] Speaker C: Yeah. So we are a, you know, we're a connected software company into operations center, meaning that we can pull in that data that you're already collecting and use that for that financial analysis. So whether you go out and you spray a certain set of chemicals, you're planting or seeding different rates of seed, at the end of the day, Operations center is recording that data and you have it in a place that's held. And if you're good at recording all that information in one place, it makes Harvest Profit setup really seamless. We can pull in your fields, your acres, your products, your rates, and it starts pulling that picture together. And we're going to combine that agronomic data with the financial data and your operational data into one place. So, you know, the integrations are great. It makes it quicker to do this analysis, it makes it easier. And the end of the day, you know, you're putting the accurate numbers because it's coming right from the machine data. [00:43:52] Speaker A: Yeah, it to set up for me, it was incredible how fast it was to just get a plan set up using John Deere operations, getting it over to Harvest Profit and just making that side so easy to work with. Okay, so you've traveled in Canada, you've traveled to some of the dealerships in my area, you've done some, some workshops. But I want to ask, you know, a Canadian farmer listening to the, to the podcast this week, you know, what's their introduction to get familiar with, with Harvest Profit? Like, how do they take the next step here? What, what does that look like? [00:44:29] Speaker C: Yeah, so there's a couple different ways you can learn about Harvest Profit. So, you know, the first way is you can just go directly to harvestprofit.com and you can find our website and dive in there. But additionally, being that we're a wholly owned connected software company by John Deere, you can find us within Operations center. So if you're in the analyze tab in your Op center account, you'll see there's a Harvest Profit link. It'll bring you to more information, help you get that account set up. And then also we are partnering with dealers working with them. So if you go to your local dealer, most likely that you know your, your intelligence solutions, your IS department, those are the people that have been working with Harvest Profit and would know enough about it to, to answer some questions for you and, and point you in the right direction. [00:45:13] Speaker A: All right, so there. So the dealership has, has somebody that, that could have an understanding of what this looks like and how to get started. [00:45:22] Speaker C: Yeah, so we're trying to work with more and more dealers on, on getting them to the point of knowing how to operate it. And they're actually, we have dealers that are Providing this as a service, even, you know, helping customers utilize their harvest profit account better. [00:45:36] Speaker A: Okay. [00:45:36] Speaker C: And also, you know, being in that we are so heavily integrated with OP center, sometimes that dealer is just helping with that setup and maintaining the data within OP center, just making sure your fields lists are cleaned up. You have good boundaries in there and all those important things that we can do to make that data process moving back and forth cleaner. [00:45:56] Speaker A: We have an individual in our local dealership that really enjoys this side of the business and really takes leadership on this side. And often they're the ones who are introducing things to us or pushing us along to get a little bit better at it. So it's really nice to have that, just that back and forth, which is appreciated. [00:46:23] Speaker C: Yeah, it's great to have partners in your business that understand what your, what your goals are and help kind of carry that vision forward. [00:46:31] Speaker A: All right, so I wanted to go now to talk about some features here. I think you've got. I know you regularly are putting out some, some updates and some new stuff, but what, what, what's kind of new these days on the harvest profit side? And let's talk about that for a minute. [00:46:51] Speaker C: Yeah. So, you know, our newest feature that we've released is going to be our equipment cost feature. And this is an ability to start looking at all the pieces of equipment you have in your OP center account, pulling that into harvest profit and starting to put some financial details behind it to understand what our true cost is per year to operate that piece of machinery. So what we're going to look at is like total hours, used, purchase price, any loan details you have on it, and start looking at some depreciation, you know, estimating depreciation, repairs, if you have maintenance or other costs like your insurance, things like that, and pulling that all into one picture. So, you know, exactly. I guess say like the hard cost of, of owning that piece of equipment for a year. Because a lot of times we will estimate maybe like a cost on a pass per acre basis. You know, maybe we say planting is. And seeding is, is so many dollars for acre. [00:47:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:44] Speaker C: But that doesn't give you that true cost of that ownership of that piece of equipment. And it also doesn't show you the kind of the economics of scale of if you do add land, does that piece of machinery actually cost more one for one for acre that you add? Are you able to kind of extend that life of that machine or the, you know, that you. Maintenance, maybe you do that maintenance once per year. If you can get a few more Acres on it. It actually is going to decrease your cost per acreage. So that's one tool that we're working on, or it's released now is really just diving into the equipment side of it. And another one we've kind of spent out for a little bit longer. But another big one is just our profit mapping and the ability to start diving down deeper than like we used to always be field by field level and now we can do that like individual within a field, that geospatial analysis. [00:48:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I had written down profit map here and that's one of my goals this year is to make sure we have that to analyze later this year. So that's one of my goals I put down. I just go back to equipment for a second. So are we just talking about just the big stuff like would you throw the combine in there, the sprayer in there, maybe the four wheel driver, or would you go even further and get some of the smaller stuff figured out? Yeah. [00:49:02] Speaker C: So we allow our users to add in obviously the big things to start with, but then also the attachments, the power units or all the things that make up the farm. So really we can go down to the individual unit and you can kind of get as crazy with that as you want. If you want to have anything that moves as part of your operation track in there, it's very possible to do it. [00:49:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, cool. Well, you and I are going to connect on that another day or I'm going to check out a YouTube video and get that figured out. [00:49:32] Speaker C: Perfect. [00:49:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Awesome. All right. Now just going back to my comment about my goal being a better user this year and superuser, like how can farms move the needle here on that side? How can they join me in that journey of getting better using harvest profit? [00:49:48] Speaker C: Yeah. So once you're in harvest profit and using it, I think the more you use it, the more you learn kind of thing. And that kind of sounds generic, but it really is. Like once you start seeing those numbers in your farm flow through, you're going to start asking yourself more questions and understanding more about your farm that you didn't before. That's something. Even so, I use harvest profit on my own farm and it's just something I realize that every year I get a little bit more knowledgeable about what influences my profit and loss in different ways. And I can maybe make some assumptions before even having to put it in the calculations anymore. But just the more we use it and the more we ask questions are really going to be what helps you get to that Power user status. But the big thing is that every user should know about is that we do have unlimited support. And so when you're in your subscription or when you're using Harvest Profit, you have access to call our team. And it's a in house support team that knows everything about the software. Right now everyone on my team either came from a farm or has a farm background, so they understand agriculture. We're here to help you. We want to walk through these questions, these scenarios and it might not, you know, you don't have to contact support just when things are wrong. We'll do account reviews, we'll do, you know, just conversations like this about what, what, what can I do better? And we'll, we'll walk you through that process. [00:51:08] Speaker A: Well, thanks for not throwing me under the bus on that one because I have asked a few silly questions in the day as well. So I've used that support more than once. All right, good stuff. Ben, I appreciate you coming on the show this week and, and giving us a little more insight into Harvest Profit. Is there anything else you want to talk about that we haven't covered? [00:51:29] Speaker C: I think just, you know, if you're out there and you're wondering about how can I track my numbers better and this sounds like something that's interesting to you, we just encourage you to give it a try. You know, we do offer a 14 day free trial. Go to our website, go into OP center like I said and hit that dropdown link and the analyze tab and just check it out. So if you're, if you're a farmer in the US or Canada right now, and that seems like a need on your farm, just give it a try, Try out that demo, talk to our team and we're here to help you out. [00:51:58] Speaker A: Sounds good, Ben. I harp on the listeners to spend some time in the office every week focusing up on that crop marketing plan. I'm brushing off the dust and I know it's hard to do, especially in the busy time, but there you go folks. HarvestProfit.com give that a try. Ben, thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day, man. [00:52:18] Speaker C: Thanks, Ryan. [00:52:22] Speaker A: All right, folks, well, great conversation with Ben. I had Ben present, I've seen Ben present a few times as well. So I always appreciate that, that expertise. So I, I said I wouldn't do eating your veggies, but I did break out the crop marketing plan checklist because the month of July here is days away. So here's what we have on the checklist. I won't go through all of this because there's about seven here listed. But the one that I have or a couple I have update your cost of production. Now you've gone through the cycle, your spray season as well and it might be that fungicide application coming up shortly. But you can kind of bake in some of your input costs here as well. So first week of July, crack a cold one and put your feet up with your laptop on the patio and update your cost of production. Doesn't that sound like a nice afternoon? But again, encourage you to look at that, look at your budget. What did you budget versus your cost because they, you know, you're in it now. So how you doing? Get fertilizer quotes for, for next year. If I got to pick a most popular question for the lunchbox crew is do we buy summer failure but get those quotes all right. For next year's acres. And I've got review outstanding targets in here as well. Of course we've had some great market action in Canola. Some market action and wheat approaching as I'm recording the six month highs. And so how you doing on those, on those targets and updating that crop marketing plan. All right. All right. So great episode. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you, Ben. I will be back live on Tuesday and we're going to keep going with the live comments. If you have any questions, hit me up. Ryanhatthefuturespodcast ca subscribe to our YouTube channel. I'm trying to get to 500 subscribers by the end of summer. We've had a lot of fun this month. We had our hockey pool wrap up. We gave away hockey tickets. Oh my goodness. I got a, I got a contest coming up for you right away once again here in next week's episode. So let's, let's wrap it up here. Episode 82. Thank you so much for joining me. Talk to you soon for the what's Futures podcast. My name is Ryan and I'm out.