Join Jeff Eizenberg and Ben Hetzel as they dive deep into the complex world of agricultural markets, consumer spending, and the surprising economics of convenience. In this eye-opening episode, they challenge the narrative of high food prices by exploring the booming delivery service industry and questioning whether consumers are truly feeling the pinch. From DoorDash delivery fees to wheat market strategies, the hosts break down the nuances of agricultural economics with their signature blend of humor and expertise. Learn why “hope is not a strategy” and discover insights into market risk management, harvest expectations, and the evolving landscape of food production and consumption. Whether you’re a farmer, agribusiness professional, or simply curious about the economics of food, this episode offers valuable perspectives that will change how you think about pricing, convenience, and market dynamics.
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Check out the complete Transcript from our latest podcast below:
Convenience vs. Cost: Navigating Agricultural Markets, Convenience, and Consumer Spending
Jeff Eizenberg 00:58
Welcome back to the hedged edge. I’m your host, Jeff Eisenberg, with my co host here. Ben Hetzel, it’s week three, Ben, and it’s Friday afternoon. You’ve got a football game to go to. What’s been going on?
Ben Hetzel 01:12
Yeah, thanks, Jeff. Glad to be here today. Got a lot of exciting things to talk about, and that the markets they just they never cease to stop. Amazing me how far down we can go. It’s all red again today, pretty much. But speaking of football, super excited. I’m a sports guy. You’re a sports guy. Little different sports the way we use a ball, but we’re still sports guys. We got the big homecoming this week in lemon, where, where I live, and taking on a neighboring rival team, which is actually a closer here at work to that town than I am my where I live, so a neighboring rival in Buffalo, South Dakota. So it’s been a it’s been a really good rivalry over the years.
Jeff Eizenberg 01:58
There we go. Well, could call FanDuel and see if they can put you guys on there for tonight’s game.
Ben Hetzel 02:03
Hope he has a great game, and battling some injuries mid season here for some of our guys, but it’s fun. And over here in Scranton, they get the football game in Richardson tonight. So the heading or Scranton Nighthawk boys are headed over to Richardson, North Dakota, to take the Raiders on. So good games should be games that the teams that I’m cheering for can win, but hopefully it’s just a good night of football and everybody goes home safe.
Jeff Eizenberg 02:35
Yeah, that’s good. Well, we’ll check in next week and find out the score here and see if you guys came out on top getting into the show. This is week three. It’s taking a life of its own. You know, we’ve had on some great guests so far, and as we talk more, and it’s just spurring all sorts of conversations and discussion and really new ideas for the farmers, the farming community and everyone in the local area to want to tune in and share ideas with themselves as well. Today’s topic, I think everyone’s going to think we’re probably crazy as we start to think about how this this plays out. But what we’re going to be talking about is how expensive is our food and the reality that people are paying 10, $12 delivery fees for a $10 cheese burger, and that they’re still complaining that the cost of food is too high. So let’s call this what this is. I’m going to call it out. This is going to be our dash barometer discussion, and I’m excited to hear what you think about it. I’m excited to hear what others have. What others have to say. You can check in with us by tweeting us at AG underscore, RCM, or you can find us on Facebook or YouTube by searching RCM, ag services. I want to find out what people are paying for their Door Dash, how much they’re paying, and in the end, how is it effective price? So we’ll talk more on that. But before we do let’s do a couple of things. First, let’s check in on this week’s market. It was, it was what it was post week report, pretty quiet. Expectations were that we were going to have this big meeting today with President Xi from China, and it was going to be a scenario where the markets were going to rally, because if Trump is going to cut the best deal ever, where are we been? We’re 12 hours after the meeting.
Ben Hetzel 04:34
Yeah, great meeting on both sides is what we’re hearing based on what I see, but nothing for egg, nothing
Jeff Eizenberg 04:44
tricketts, nothing for AG, you know, there is a little bit out there, some thought that. Well, yeah, we’ve got this 20% tariff on fentanyl, which is raising 80, 90 billion of dollars worth of income and rent. Revenue, and that they’re going to take that money and pick it right back into the farmers. We’ve been hearing 10, 11 billion and Farm Aid, if that’s what they have to do, that’s what they have to do. But I don’t know about you, I just much rather see us selling our grain.
Ben Hetzel 05:17
Yeah, absolutely. That’s the best thing that we can have going on. Is is just fair trade. And you know, there’s a lot of talk that if the Supreme Court rules it’s unconstitutional what Trump’s done with tariffs that could have a devastating impact on these markets. And I think farmers and ranchers just need to be prudent with marketing decisions and mitigate risk where they can and in hopes that all that’s just hooey and goes away. But the risk is there. You know, however they plan to utilize money to rob Peter, to pay Paul, so to speak, is just nonsense. We need fair markets, and we need a market that’s profitable for our producers, and I don’t think any government form of bailout has ever been good for the ag sector long term, right?
Jeff Eizenberg 06:11
You’re right, and it might be a short term band aid. And you know, there’s talk and hope that ultimately we get a deal done. Doesn’t seem like this crop year, but let’s say for next and maybe that’s the reality, and we were facing these current prices, or possibly lower, because everyone’s got a great crop coming, and we’ll have to take in the aid, do what we have to do to get on to next year. And then, you know, hope that we have a new strategy. And you and I have talked about the word hope, and that’s one thing that I’ve been training my entire career, 25 years. And whether it’s a hedge fund or agriculture side of the business, that I’ve been on, hope is not a strategy. And that’s one thing that I feel like this show, is we’ve pulled it together and talked and communicated that our goal is to help people understand that there are opportunities in the marketplace. It doesn’t have to be because you love the price. It doesn’t have to be because you have to sell. It has to be because you have a plan and a strategy.
Ben Hetzel 07:19
Well, that’s a great topic, because, you know, the last two years, at least, even longer now, but the last two years, particularly, we’re in wheat country, so that that’s a huge concern for all the producers that I talked to. Hopefully they’ve got other grains as well, because it’s, it seems, or, you know, hopefully they like to grow other grains, because it seems like we’re moving away from wheat or trying to. But as you look at the wheat market, the last two years, there’s been 20 cent carries between the contract months, pretty steadily. You know, there’s some that come in tighter, you know, 1315, cents. But you know, by expiration, a lot of times they widen back out to 20 plus cents. We’ve seen them as wide as 30 at expiration. But you know, at one point in time, there was 60 cent carry out through three months. And that’s given you a great opportunity, even if you don’t like to your point the price up front, you can maybe look out there and find a spot where it works logistically to market some grain that traditionally would have a good basis, you know, a traditionally good basis. And I’ve been talking to growers lately about that very, very topic, you know, we need to be calling into the elevator merchandisers and saying, Hey, if I deliver in Jan, Feb, March, what kind of basis could I lock in today against this carry, you know, and they can go to work on that, you know, you make, make those offers, put that drain out there for them to Go, try to market. Because by time we get there, oftentimes, Jeff, you’ve been in the market a long time, these carries converge to the front end, and we just see this same flat price all the way through the marketing year, or a range of that. You know, last year, at harvest, we on 14 pro spring wheat particularly, just as an example, we dipped down into the high $4 range, which everybody was just their minds were blown that we’d have a four in front of the price of wheat locally. But it happened. And then we got back to five and a quarter. And I’m like, Guys, we might have to be happy with this price. You know, not saying this is it, but it’s going to take something non traditional to break out of this. While we didn’t get it on the futures, we got that steady yo yo effect. But as it went, it went out, the only reason we seen $6 cash or high $5 cash was all basis. You. And in a lot of ways, it was non traditional situations that don’t always present themselves. It wasn’t seasonal demand that created that opportunity. It was a shortened market somebody needed to cover and advantages for the farmers that are near that you can’t count on that hope that that’s going to happen again. To your point, hope is not a strategy. So you got to look out there and say, Okay, what can I get for a basis to take the carry out of the market, whether it’s corn, corn got nice carries out into the new crop, wheat, wheat has a nice carry there’s, there’s usually an opportunity out there, if, if you’re looking for it, and you know, if you, if your facility that you’re marketing with, or your your buyer is willing to to roll positions, you can take some risk off that way as well. And I don’t want to get too far in the weeds on some of that, but you know, as you know, I do a lot of stuff with over the counter, using swaps. Do a lot of non traditional contracts for growers, where they’re making offers, getting premiums, and maybe the market spikes. And being an independent Co Op is Scranton equity is in the way I operate it, which is kind of nice that I’m the guy that’s choosing how much risk we take. Because I, you know, I’m reporting to a board, and they’re all in the loop of what I’m doing. You know, if you’re a bigger company, maybe you don’t have the flexibility to do some of this stuff. But you know, if, if that market were to rally and you want to blow out all that offering, we can potentially roll that into a new crop position if it were to hit. And if you’re offering grain, it’s usually above the market on those deals, so it’s a premium to where we’re at today. And if that hits, that means the market did, did respond. It did what we were hoping it would do we wanted it to do, and we’re being rewarded. And, okay, we got rid of all our grains, so now we gotta roll that position to a new crop. That means that new crop values better than it was when you put this position on. Also, I don’t find a hole in that strategy.
Jeff Eizenberg 12:18
Yeah, you’re right in thinking along those lines. And sometimes people think about price and all they see is the flat price. And the difference between a flat price and the pricing you’re talking about is that you need to break it apart into two. And so we’re taking a little bit of time here in this episode to speak about the difference between futures and basis and challenge people to think a little bit more outside the box and having those types of conversations with their buyers. Right now, we are seeing offers on the future side, with some of the cash contracts that you’re talking about that include OTC and others that could be as over $5 in 2026 for the futures portion now, basis is the other side. Are you as an elevator going to put out basis offers for 2026 crop? Probably not right now, but coming up into the middle of next year, you will so people will have the opportunity today to think about pricing a portion of their grain for next year, even though they don’t love the price of this year’s grain. And I do want to make make a note here we’ve talked and you’ve said, well, people traditionally don’t like to do that, because they don’t know if they’re going to actually grow the crop. Have you ever gotten to a point talking with guys that they don’t have anything to sell?
Ben Hetzel 13:50
Good point, you know, generally, there’s something left year to year. You know, most farmers that I’ve ever worked with, there’s a few that’ll sell out of certain drops, but generally, there’s one or or maybe two that gets stashed away and kept as a reserve, you know. And the old, the old mentality that I heard a lot of times growing up from my dad was, well, that’s my bank account. If I don’t raise a crop, I got something to sell. I don’t know that. He was always thinking that that would mean the market would rally and he could sell it for more other than it’s just he had it to sell. And I’m not going to speak for him, obviously, but as I’ve been around and heard those conversations, that’s what it appears in it, for certain people, is it’s, it’s kind of a little nest egg, but generally producers will have, especially in wheat country, it seems like we always carry about 25% or more. Seems like the reporting coming out always around 30% stocks on farm. So that means we’re carrying a chunk of grain all the time. Yeah. And I would challenge growers, why is that not forward contracted in a carry market all the time? Why are you not taking premiums out of this market all the time? You don’t have to get way out into the future with that. You can be three, four contract months out, and all six, nine months if you want to get aggressive and and take that carry out. You know you have the grain. There’s virtually no risk to you if you weren’t going to market it anyway, other than you might actually market it. And if that’s a crime at that price, then don’t do it. Please don’t do it. But if it’s a good price, it’s way above the market, and you’re going to be disappointed in that. That’d be the only reason not to do it.
Speaker 1 15:47
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Jeff Eizenberg 16:04
shifting gears a little bit to harvest, since we’re heading into that timeframe, it’s almost fall. Next week be the first week of fall, and probably by time this show airs, it will be the numbers are big. We’re looking at a huge crop nationwide. You’ve shared with me that you’ve got some great crop coming in, maybe some quality concerns about the freeze that you had last week. Love to kind of hear from you where you are there. It’s grant equity and talking to the farmers in that area. How’s the quality look? How does the how’s the crop look? And more importantly, where are you going to put all the grain?
Ben Hetzel 16:47
A few challenges there in that statement, the quality from what I’m seeing and talking to people, we’re optimistic is the word to use there. Don’t really know how it’s going to pan out, but I was in some fields with some guys and pick some ears. I got to get them checked. Still what we’re dealing with there, but it was really encouraged by what I was seeing, been hearing it. So I had to see it for myself, to believe it, so to speak, because it’s just a kind of unchartered territory. And to be honest, the last experience I had was not good. We ended up with super light corn that stayed at, you know, close to 20 moisture and there’s limited places to go with stuff like that. So really encouraged. I think our overall quality is going to be better than what a lot of us anticipated in in most of the areas, obviously, there’s going to be the entire spectrum of really bad stuff to stuff that wasn’t even hurt. I talked to a farmer near the rain country this morning, and he got up in the middle of the night to check the weather, and his son’s got a field that, for whatever reason, when he checked the weather, there was a cloud on the radar right over that spot where his son’s field is, his corn field, and he refreshed it because he couldn’t believe there’d even be a cloud in the sky, but he refreshed it, and I’ll be darn that was the only place in the southwest corner in North Dakota that had a cloud, and that field did not freeze. The only thing he could attribute it to is his son’s been going to church a lot.
Jeff Eizenberg 18:20
Hey, sometimes it pays.
Ben Hetzel 18:22
So, yeah, it’s better than we thought. And and we’re cautiously optimistic that it’s going to be it’s going to be okay. We’re going to have something to market. I don’t know where we’re going to put it. I think the baggers will be working overtime to put it in the big white peg zone in the field. You know, if it’s, if it’s quality, that can be exported or blended, we’ll find some homes. There’s a good export program for corn, and on the P and W, there’s, there’s other homes as well. And this grain will those grain will navigate through the pipe, and, you know, you get quality issues. Basically, the best thing you can do is stash it away and get through harvest, and then bring those samples, bag samples, Bin samples, whatever it is, bring them in, get them checked, figure out what, what grade flow it needs to go through and and get it, get steel wheels rolling.
Jeff Eizenberg 19:19
Sounds a good plan. Well, let’s take a minute here. Ben, since we’re staying on topic of quality and bagging and bringing in samples, would you mind give us a quick update on what’s going on with the co op? I know you’ve had a huge project you’ve been working on and some new storage facilities, as well as a revamped track rail line. Tell us what’s been going on out there, what’s the status of the project, and when can people start to expect to start bringing hauling in more grain?
Ben Hetzel 19:49
Yeah, so we started this project, ultimately, over a year ago, we changed the traffic flow and put up a new scale and grading house. And. Main Office got the trucks navigating through the facility a little bit cleaner and smoother. It’s been well received. It’s not ideal, because the way the the community is laid out here with the railroad track, and there’s a creek that runs through so kind of limited, or what, what options we really had there to fix the traffic flow with all the infrastructure that’s already in place, but we think we got a pretty good plan going forward. That was phase one, and now phase two is well underway. As you referenced, we’re putting up another slip elevator. It’s a big investment for the Co Op, big investment into the community. It’s going to have far reaching effects. I’m anticipating with speed at which we can dump today, we have two, basically two concrete work houses that we use to handle the multiple commodities that we’re doing, and each one of them has a dump pit inside those work houses. So it’s, basically two, two dump pits, and it’s going to be going to four. And the two new ones are high speed. Each one of those dump pits is faster than the two pits we have today. Quite an increase in velocity of receiving. And you know, as we looked at it, the age of the workhouse and the load out facility for the amount of grain that the equity is has handled over the years, it was time to really look at investing in another load out. It’s high speed, so we don’t have to spend 1215, hours loading these trains. We can get them loaded in six, seven hours because of the track layout, it just makes it kind of a non event, if you will. But that’s the idea. Is there’s less and less people in the rural communities that they’re wanting to live here, and we got to speed this stuff up and take care of our people that do work for us, and it’s going to be a huge advantage. And with the changes the railroads made to their policies on how they handle these big timed out trains. It’s, it’s going to be a really nice addition. So if it comes in the middle of the night, I don’t, don’t necessarily have to get up super early and and go get that train loaded. We can kind of pick our time slot, get it loaded and move on about the day. So huge, huge advantage for the producers in this area. It’s going to be a facility, a legacy facility, as you know, these concrete houses stand for many, many years, and super excited about that, but we are back out of the ground. Yes, we’re on the surface of the ground and getting ready to go up in the air. So the crew is working diligently to pour the last slab before they build the form. And once that forms built, we’ll be we’ll be slipping. Wow. So super fun
Jeff Eizenberg 22:55
next year, next year’s the next year’s crap. We up and going, hopefully,
Ben Hetzel 23:01
if they the weather holds and they get the slip done here late October, which is kind of the anticipated, optimistic timeline, maybe early November, and then all winter and next spring they’ll spend putting the equipment in place, and hopefully we’ll be able to fill it harvest The next year. But it could be September,
Jeff Eizenberg 23:21
September, right? Well, if we get another crop like this one, you’re gonna be pretty busy out there.
Ben Hetzel 23:28
Yeah, lots of bushels. And takes a lot, a lot of effort on our people. And I’m super excited to see see this change for not only our producers, but our employees and and it’ll it’s going to be fun. Just need the bushels next year as well.
Jeff Eizenberg 23:48
Hey, from your mouth to God’s ears, right? That’s right. Well, good luck, and yeah, keep us posted. We’ll be checking in with you on that as we talk more.
Speaker 1 23:58
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Jeff Eizenberg 24:15
we’re going to shift over to this week’s main topic, which not that we didn’t already cover a lot, but we we’ve been talking over the last couple of weeks to different people. We’ve talked to the banks, we’ve talked to Dwayne over at Dakota western bank. We’ve we talked with David Munoz, with Bartlett, and the same topic keeps coming up. We’ve got higher priced beef, we’ve got higher priced cattle, and we got the fact that people are spending more and more at the grocery store, they’re spending more and more for a normal meal. And there’s a consensus out there that the consumer is feeling pressure in a pinch. So I really want to throw it out today that I don’t really think that the consumer is in that much a pain, if you think about it, Dwayne brought this up to us the other. Day that people are buying their fast food or their convenience food, let’s call it that they’re buying it on a credit card, and they’re buying it through DoorDash. They’re buying it through, you know, some of these convenient solutions. Well, if they’re doing that, how much are they actually paying for the food versus how much they’re spending, and it’s actually impacting their pocketbook, that’s the question. And then we can ask, Is food really that much more expensive, or can people afford even higher prices?
Ben Hetzel 25:35
I don’t know if I even want to touch that topic, because, you know, to each his own. But no, I think, I think it’s an interesting scenario that’s unfolding. You know, we’re not, I don’t think any of us are naive to the credit card game. You know, if you don’t pay that credit card off every month, then you are financing whatever it is you’re putting on there. And if that’s fast food or whatever it is, I would just about bet there’s a whole lot of convenience purchasing in there, where we’ve become a convenience and instant gratification society. Take care of what I want right now. And I mean, I’m a victim. I’m I’m in it, and so, you know it. I don’t think people in general. Now, of course, we live in rural America. You’re, you’re in closer to Big City Life. I mean, you live it. So it’s, it’s hard for me to even comprehend what’s going on in that realm. But out here, I don’t see a lot of adjustments being made. I still drive by a few C stores in the mornings, and people are in there getting their breakfast or their coffees, or maybe they’re packing a lunch for the day, whatever it is that’s the most expensive place to buy that. And I don’t see a change in the flow of traffic in and out of those places so and I haven’t changed my habits, but I know that when you go buy a steak, it’s, it’s 20 bucks, you know, expensive, some dollar steak, and fortunately for myself and my family, we raise our own. But there that’s opportunity cost too. You know, I could sell that and not not eat that steak, but, you know. So the prices have gone up. I don’t think it’s hit the retail stores, you know, the big bot stores, like it’s going to that. We’ll see that starting to develop here in the fall months, probably more and more as these prices, you know, there was a stockpile of product in the system that maybe didn’t have prices ratcheted up on yet, but it’s coming, you know. And so what does it take to start breaking that habit? I honestly think that, you know, I think my dad might have said this years ago to me, or a few years back, that the only time you’ll really change people’s habits is, it is when they get hungry.
Jeff Eizenberg 28:04
Literally, we don’t see that in our country right now. I mean, to be honest, I I was like, you don’t change the habits too much. But I the other day, I was last weekend, went to Ohio State football game, and we just tailgated. So we were down. We’re waiting. And we got late to the tailgate, so we missed all the good food. And I said to my wife, let’s order Chipotle. I bet you I can get it delivered to me standing here on the corner. And she said, No way. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I go, No, watch this. Pulled up my Chipotle app, hit the num, hit the button, ordered three different Chipotle burritos for us, for her and I, and in a friend. And all I had to do was type in my location, and next thing you know, 30 minutes later, I was standing at a corner waving down a guy in a in a in a yellow minivan, and he dropped off my food. Now I cost me $10 but that was the best $10 ever spent. I almost even bought the steak Chipotle to spend a few more dollars just, just so I could feel like I got it
Ben Hetzel 29:08
all. Oh, man, that’s that’s an amazing story, because if you’d have bought a nacho in the store or in the stadium, it cost you what that whole meal cost you guys. Yes, exactly, right.
Jeff Eizenberg 29:21
So I think the point in all this is that employment is strong. There’s people utilizing these middlemen services and these tools that are have been created. And I looked up the data, and in a five year span, Door Dash and these different types of companies have increased their revenue from about a billion dollars to 12 billion. So 12 times the amount of money is being spent on these services again, post covid. Covid accelerated this middleman business, and now you think about people, Instacart shopping, having people go shopping. Before that, what are they paying? Three. I have 10 more dollars on top of their grocery bill. People are complaining about the fact that prices are too high, but the reality is, they’re spending more on these service conveniences that they don’t need to spend. So to your dad’s point, to your point that you made that your dad said, I don’t think that there’s actually a problem with the cost of food. It’s likely that people have become a little bit lazy.
Ben Hetzel 30:24
Yeah, hard to believe that, like Walmart delivers groceries, or, you know, you can send it, call your order in, and they’ll deliver it like DoorDash out here in rural America, they’ll drive 25 miles. I I’m not even making that up. I didn’t know that was a thing. It’ll literally deliver it to a neighboring town 25 miles away, if you’re willing to pay for it. I have no idea. I I have no idea, but that just blows my mind. For then the gas to go home and go to Walmart and pick that up and spend the extra 1520 minutes other than the drive time, just because you’re driving through town and traffic and go in the store, out of the store, I mean, they I don’t know if you could charge enough for that.
Jeff Eizenberg 31:12
I think you should at the game tonight. You should try the chipotle game that I just played. I don’t know how close the closest one is to you in lemon, but put it in if you can, and text me how much it would the delivery fee is, if it’s not Chipotle, I’m sure Chick fil A or something else around you has it. Text me the picture. I have to know the listeners. Oh, my God. I have to know. I should
Ben Hetzel 31:37
try to do that. I’ll try to remember. You might have to text me later to remind me my mind might not be on Chick fil A or Chipotle. I don’t even know where there’s a Chipotle. I I’m guessing Bismarck two hours
Jeff Eizenberg 31:49
might be a little cold by the time it gets
Ben Hetzel 31:52
to you. I hear you though, you know it’s I don’t think the price of that stuff has gone up to a point where people are going to change their habits. And, you know, it’s too easy to get get extended credit on your credit cards or whatever it is. And you know, we’ve seen an increase in pay scale in rural America. I’m sure it’s happening everywhere. So as people have earned more, even though their dollar doesn’t go as far. You know, this perceived idea that I’ve got, oh, I’ve got three 5% more to spend on convenience or or entertainment or whatever it is, and beyond the food, and we won’t even touch this, because this would be a whole nother rabbit hole. But how many apps and TV channels subscriptions do Americans have that are just hitting their credit cards and they don’t even know anymore? I look at mine, and I’m just like, my dumb kids, every time I turn around, there’s something on there. I’m like, Stop doing that. We’re not doing this, you know. And so if you don’t monitor that, pretty soon, you’re just getting gobbled up with these $10 $2 whatever they are, fees for these subscriptions. It’s crazy. Now there’s service companies out there, these middlemen, as you call them. They’re they’re out there helping you figure out how to manage that, right? So making a business off of your bad decision making, you know, I blows my mind.
Jeff Eizenberg 33:21
Yeah, well, we’re gonna keep track of that. We’re gonna call that the dash barometer. I think we keep track of it. I think we put a challenge out to listeners to text us or send us a picture of cost of a convenient drop off at your home. I’d love to see that. I’d love to hear from people, if they can do it, it’s just, you’re going to need to take a picture and drop it in on Facebook or the YouTube channel, or even even email it into us, if you like. But I’m going to, we’re going to report on this one. So more to come. On that front,
Speaker 1 33:57
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Ben Hetzel 34:05
Today, you talked about the cattle prices being high, and we’ve talked off, off there, and conversations and whatnot about the government. You know, I’ve seen the video, and I don’t know if you’ve seen it, I’ve talked about it with people that Trump stood in front of an audio a group on at a podium and said, we got the price of eggs down. We’re going to get the price of beef down. You know, for the ag community, that’s that should infuriate us, but yet, you know, the American people are concerned about it. We don’t want the price of beef to go down because we raise it. You don’t raise beef, so you want the price to beef to go down. So when you order that Chipotle steak sand steak burrito, it doesn’t cost you 30 bucks next time, right? And so there’s, there’s conflicting opinions on what’s in the best interest, but it comes down. Each individual, just like the rest of this stuff. But again, mitigating risk is so important for the Ag producer on that front and hope is not a strategy. You said it, and I think that we should stand on the hill with the flag all day long, preaching that. But one thing that every producer is realizing, and I think our next episode down the road, should we should bring in a guy, and I’ve got an idea for an agronomy input speaker. He would shed some light on what’s going on in the input world. But what we’re seeing is, after an adjustment for inflation, some of the highest price inputs compared to the lowest price for production, that disparity has gotten so wide our producers are are really in a pickle. And so I think to call out one of our goals with this podcast is to help navigate that that space and educate producers on opportunities in the market and tools that are out there. And I encourage growers that are listening and people that know producers that are listening that might hear this point I’m at this, and tell them, hey, there’s there’s somebody out there that might be able to help you, and I think the partnership that we have, Scranton equity, RCM egg services yourself, me and the team that we have around us can do a phenomenal job to lead people to the right solutions for their challenges. And I just want to call that out.
Jeff Eizenberg 36:41
That’s right, and it’s a great way to wrap up today’s episode and segment is to repeat the theme, the team is everything. It’s it’s what we all need in order to be successful. Not one of us knows everything, but not one of us is going to have the right answer every time. But if you share your ideas and you’re willing to talk about the good and the bad, not just the wins, but also the losses and the risk that you face day to day, there’s going to be a solution for you. And unfortunately, it can’t come at the end, when you’re faced with harvest and you haven’t made a sale, it has to be along the way, throughout the year in advance, like we talked about earlier in this episode, even as far as six, nine, even 12, months in advance. So definitely plan on checking in with Ben, getting involved with with your local buyer on a more intimate basis, your bankers, your agronomists and your brokerage firms, and talk with them about how they can help give you some good ideas. Share with them your ideas as well. And what we hope in the end is that these episodes, these shows, yes, we’re having a lot of fun today talking football and DoorDash, but we’re hoping that in the end, people are taking a minute to reflect and think about how their farm and their operation is managing and mitigating risk
38:13
absolutely well. Thank
Jeff Eizenberg 38:14
you again for the great week on this show. We’ll be back back on the mic next week and next few weeks after that. So good luck in football this weekend. We’ll talk early next week.
Ben Hetzel 38:27
Yeah, enjoy your weekend. Can’t wait to catch up next week. Thanks, Jeff,
Corn continued to move higher off last month’s lows following the September USDA Report. Most of the numbers came in along estimates but they increased planted acreage 1.4 million acres. This brings the US corn crop to 98.7 million acres, a new record. With about 90 million acres expected to be harvested, we will harvest 7 million more acres this year than in 2024, which equates to about 2 billion bushels larger crop than last year. Despite the added acreage corn bounced post report as weather issues, a dry finish, and disease pressure have caused speculation on the real size of this crop. As harvest gets rolling we will learn more about this crop.
The USDA Report did not have any surprises for beans as most numbers were close to estimates, but the report could be viewed as slightly bearish. To get beans moving higher, China needs to show up as a buyer and trade talks with China need to make progress. China and the US are reportedly close to a deal over Tik Tok which can hopefully build some momentum for progress between the two countries. The size of the soybean crop, like corn, has been hurt by lack of rains down the home stretch but with the solid start the end result is still in question as harvest rolls.
