Tag: The Hedged Edge Podcast

23 Oct 2025

Harvest, Hedging, and History: Navigating Agricultural Markets from Grain Elevators to Futures Contracts

In this episode of The Hedged Edge, hosts Jeff Eizenberg and Ben Hetzel dive deep into the heart of agricultural markets with special guest Fred Seamon from CME Group. As harvest challenges mount with record-breaking rainfall across the Midwest, the conversation spans centuries of market innovation—from the early days of Chicago’s grain trade to cutting-edge futures contracts. Fred shares fascinating insights into the historical development of commodity exchanges, explaining how farmers went from local merchants to global market participants.

The discussion explores critical topics including harvest logistics, railroad transportation, the evolving role of the USDA, and emerging market tools like the new fertilizer futures contract. Listeners will gain a rich understanding of how technological advances and market innovations continue to transform risk management for producers. Whether you’re a farmer, trader, or agricultural enthusiast, this episode offers a comprehensive look at the complex ecosystem of agricultural markets, blending historical perspective with forward-looking analysis.

Packed with expert commentary, practical insights, and a touch of humor, this episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in understanding the intricate world of commodity trading and agricultural economics.

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Listen on the radio at KNDC Radio https://www.kndcradio.com/

and KBJM Radio https://kbjm.com/

 

Check out the complete Transcript from our latest podcast below:

Harvest, Hedging, and History: Navigating Agricultural Markets from Grain Elevators to Futures Contracts

Jeff Eizenberg  00:57

Welcome to the next episode of The hedged edge. I’m your host, Jeff Eisenberg, and I’m here with my co host, Ben Hetzel. Ben, it’s almost big game season, and we’re talking waterfowl. What’s been going on? You get out any hunting yet?

 

Ben Hetzel  01:12

No, I haven’t. My my boys like to shoot some birds. I don’t mind going out a little bit. I much prefer to shoot the clay version, because I don’t know, I just, for some reason, I’ve always kind of grown up with the idea that if you’re gonna hunt

 

Speaker 1  01:28

wildlife, you have to be willing to eat the wild game that you hunt.

 

Ben Hetzel  01:33

And I’ve never been a real big fan of game bird, so I didn’t, we didn’t shoot a lot of them when I was a kid. So, but my boys like to hunt, and it’s a lot of our family hunts, so it’s, it’s just good to get out. But yeah, we’re coming up on, there’s, there’s tons of people out there along the roads, and sometimes not the safest practices going on with vehicles on these country roads. But definitely got bird season going on and and big games coming right around the corner, and that’s kind of what we do. We we enjoy that a little more, I’d say. So we’re excited.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  02:12

That’s good. Now, with all the weather we’ve had all the wet, rain and whatnot, that’s good for birds. Yeah,

 

Ben Hetzel  02:19

I mean, it’s, probably all right. In general, it’s good to have moisture versus drought, obviously, and it’s been crazy. I’d say this year has got to be right up there with a record for a lot of places. I hear producers talk across the trade area that they are at record levels. And when you have thunderstorms, they vary and that sort of thing. But it’s been an unbelievably wet year for this trade area, Southwest, North Dakota, Northwest South Dakota. I seen a visual on kind of the percentile, and we’re at like 150% to normal, is what our little area of the world showed, particularly right around where I live, near London, and so yeah, it’s, it’s good, but yet challenging at times. Harvest is slow to come off. These row crops are ready in a lot of areas, and harvest is definitely moving forward, but we see fields that are ready to be cut, fields that are cut. So it’s, we’re in the midst, and I know a lot of guys are anxious to get get everything out of those fields, especially when you got you know, we’ve had some high winds, 60 mile an hour us, and so guys are nervous about some of these row crops starting fall down or whatever it is. But again, the wildlife sure enjoy that cover. So more harvest that gets done makes it easier on the deer and antelope hunters, but it’s that season. Yep.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  03:52

And speaking of harvest, where, where are we in the process now, from the elevators perspective, you guys filling up, starting to put up any grain piles? What’s it look like as you’re driving around?

 

Ben Hetzel  04:04

I don’t see too many piles. You know, out here, we do a lot of grain bagging, past how that’s managed. Wildlife can be a challenge, especially in a wet year. No, you were curious of how that all kind of works. But for the most part, the bags are fine, unless wildlife get on them and start popping holes in them and then have some serious problems. But a lot of people manage them real close. Now, you know, there’s been some train wrecks on bags, but, yeah, it’s, there’s a there’s a fair amount of bags around, and guys were moving a little bit of small grain. A lot of canola has been moved. So I think there’s places to go with some of this row crop harvest, but we’re getting pressure all the time to continue to make space, pretty hard to keep the flax and the peas and the canola and the wheat, all that stuff moving because they want to try to market their corn and. And some fires as well. And so it’s been a real battle. Railroads kind of slipped a little bit. It’s gotten a little bit late on placements, so that’s a challenge as well. But it hadn’t been too bad, and I wouldn’t say we’re way behind. You know, seasonally, it’s not uncommon to expect some delays, but it’s it’s starting to show up a little bit more now, as corn harvest is ramping up in the east and and on the railroads defense, this soybean crop didn’t move like normal it was a non traditional flow for them, and so that they actually, I think, adjusted about as well as you could ever expect a large organization to shift their assets, and fortunately, it’s a smooth move to the Gulf. It’s not quite as smooth for us up here as going to the P and W, but that flow isn’t a bad flow, and so the railroad can do it fairly efficiently. And so that’s a positive. Unlike the Mexico market, where we can bottleneck the border and some of that stuff, and there is, there’s some congestion going on there. We’re hearing trains are getting held up across the border, slow to come back out, and so that is affecting some of this. But that’s just a volume issue, which is good. I mean, Mexico has been a great trade partner. We’ve talked about it on our podcast. People that tuned in to one of our earlier shows learned a lot about what’s going on with US and Mexico, and I think that’s key going forward still. But, you know, maybe we’ll get into a little bit of it today, on the rest of the world and what’s going on. There’s lots of news this last week that kind of rocked the market. China’s still obviously a big topic. So if

 

Speaker 2  06:52

you want to listen back to this episode or find past episodes of The hedged edge, visit kbjm.com or kndc radio.com under Listen Live and podcast options, or either station’s free mobile app under podcasts.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  07:08

Yeah, that’s a great segue. And yeah, I’m excited here today, we’re going to bring on a special guest that’s got a ton of history and experience in the markets, and take a look back in memory lane and understand what the importance is of the exchange, is how the exchange ultimately helps us to manage risk, and a lot of that comes down to understanding the history and how things flow, how trade flows, and how traders are able to manage some of the things you just talked about, people Bringing more crop to town than possibly in years past. How the rail systems could potentially slow down movement of grain from Southwest North Dakota down through to the Gulf, etc. So with that, we’ll take a minute here and introduce our guests. We have Fred Seaman joining us from the CME Group. Fred is with us, right out of Chicago, been part of the exchange for the last nearly 25 years. So welcome Fred.

 

Fred Seamon  08:08

Thank you, Jeff. Much appreciated. Really glad to be here.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  08:13

No thanks for jumping on this exciting for me, you and I basically have been involved in Chicago markets about the same amount of time you’re saying 2001 for you, I started out working at the Board of Trade, and in 2000 you know, our paths have kind of meandered, but we’ve never crossed until today. So this is exciting.

 

Fred Seamon  08:35

It’s amazing that we haven’t, but I did. I started in late 2001 and had been teaching at the University of Wyoming, so it was quite a change for me and my wife, but definitely haven’t looked back. It’s been the best job I’ve ever had by far.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  08:53

Yeah, you can’t beat the exchanges. The history goes back over. I think, I believe, 150 years, you know, the way in which they started out being Chicago, the center of the agricultural world, and the river and the rail all coming in, and now, now today, to be the place where innovation is happening, left and right. You know, the the thing that stands out to me, I think people miss and I always ask farmers that I meet, I ask elevator operators that I meet. Have you been to Chicago and have you seen the exchanges? And unfortunately, they transitioned away in our career, time from the pit traded. But I would love for you to help everyone remember the the training coats, the greens, the yellows, the blues, kind of the vibe that Chicago used to have.

 

Fred Seamon  09:46

I’m so glad that I got to witness peak four before, you know, it started to decline. And you know that did occur during my my tenure at the exchange. I. And, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s all electronic now, but you know that was, we got into a commodity boom in the, you know, early and mid, 2000s and you know, you would get really, really busy days. And I would hear from merchandisers, you know that, you know, they would, it would take some period of time before they would get confirmation on fills. So as efficient as the floor was, and it was extremely efficient, there’s a lot of things the floor did really, really well, but the markets had just grown to a point where, you know, the electronic screen just became, you know, the choice when, when we did start having daytime, electronic trade, the choice of most agricultural traders, and it started to to evolve away from the floor. But, you know, a lot of what happened on that floor is still relevant today. It’s just how we manage, you know, and how people enter and execute trades has changed. That’s all. But the underlying reason for them, the markets are still the same.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  11:10

Yeah, that’s That’s right. It’s a place to discover price and also manage risk. And the reality that the hedging community is what the exchanges were built for. Is so important for people understand it was built for hedgers, the speculators came in to provide liquidity. And today it’s a global marketplace that trades 24, six, effective, yeah. Well,

 

Fred Seamon  11:37

you know, it started as a spot market. If you go back into the 1840s you know what happened is, you know, everyone knows the US started 13 original colonies on the east coast. But as it started to expand westward, it didn’t take farmers long to recognize that they would rather farm ground in places like Ohio and Indiana and Illinois than they would Massachusetts and New York. So agricultural production moved westward, but most of the people were still in the east. So at harvest, you know, you’d have all these farmers bringing all of this grain into the major cities, Chicago, being one of them. And you know, they would try to find a merchant who was willing to buy their grain to, you know, arrange for it to be shipped back to the east where it would be consumed. And you know, some of those merchants were legitimate, some probably not. And you know, the the idea, did all producers get equal treatment? Well, probably not. So the exchange actually started. Well, there’s a few things. You know, the Board of Trade was a an organization that was started to promote commerce in the city of Chicago, and grain trade was one of those things. So, you know, their their first idea was just, let’s have merchant members, and let’s have them congregate in one place, and then, you know, a farmer can come to that one place, the members have been vetted, so, you know, hopefully they’re all legitimate, and something that we take for granted, but was real powerful at the time, was every time there was a transaction, they would post the price, so that the next farmer that came along probably wouldn’t receive the Same price, but would get an idea of the value of what they were, you know, selling, and that was the start of the exchange. It was just a spot market. Need to fall from there, eventually becoming forward contracts, and ultimately futures contracts in the 1860s that didn’t ultimately succeed, but corn, wheat and oak futures all launched on January 2. 1877 have existed continually since. It’s

 

Jeff Eizenberg  14:17

quite the history it is.

 

Ben Hetzel  14:19

It’s really kind of wild when you think about farmers and ranchers moving their goods far as they did. You know, I’ve got my aunt was going through the attic of the farmhouse where my grandparents lived for all my life anyway, and most of my mom and her siblings, but they found boxes of old receipts or tickets from when they would haul calves down to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. And mean to drive that today is a trek. I mean, it’s a six and a half hour drive. And to think back then they loaded their calves up and. The wagons and shipped them down there, or they took them in when the railroad came through, they took them in and put them on the rail and down there and sold them. And it’s just crazy to think of the dollars that they were transacting compared to what we’re transacting today. And of course, was cattle at all time highs. It’s just unbelievable. That journey that them, people went on to move that grain or those cattle was remarkable,

 

Fred Seamon  15:28

absolutely remarkable. And one of the things, Jeff, I think you, you mentioned, was about innovation and the farmers, indeed, the effort that they took to bring grain into the city, and then, you know, you got the railroads and so forth. And that certainly evolved. But, you know, transportation into the major merchandising points. But a couple of the innovations that occurred at the exchange early that we again take for granted, but it just completely revolutionized how grain was traded. Two of them were a system of grades and sampling. There wasn’t a USDA then, so a way to be able to differentiate grain so that it could be commingled in a grain elevator. And the first grain elevator in Chicago was was built in the late 1830s so the ability to commingle grain, and then the idea of receding grain within a facility, so that you could trade grain among multiple parties without it having to move to the multiple parties. It could just sit in one location, and you could just trade ownership of it. And that really revolutionized grain trade. And actually the center of grain trade in the Midwest. US moved from St Louis to Chicago because of those, those innovations, I

 

Jeff Eizenberg  17:08

think that’s really important for people to understand, is that the exchange has continued to evolve to support the farming community. It’s something that has been exciting the whole way through that, the point then became the delivery mechanism, right? Because that, I also believe is important to have multiple delivery points, of which the grade and quality is standardized. Was that the exchange that drove that? Or how did that come about?

 

Fred Seamon  17:35

They did and of course, there’s some great stories of shenanigans that went on along with that. But, yeah, a system of grades and a system of grading as well. But as you can imagine, when you know the Registrar of the exchange, the person that’s signing their checks, is a member of the change that also runs a grain elevator at the same time. There could be, from time to time, pressure on that exchange staff member to, you know, look one way or another when it came to grading grain. So at some point, the state of Illinois stepped in and said, enough of the shenanigans. We’re taking over. And those processes have existed at the government level, rather than the exchange level, for most of our existence. But did start at the exchange that’s

 

Ben Hetzel  18:39

kind of wild, because you’re talking like 1830 in the USDA started 1860 or Yeah?

 

Fred Seamon  18:47

Is that? Yeah? I think, I think that’s right. And it’s interesting. It was the 1860s when the state of Illinois took over inspection. So that was part of the learning process as things move from exchange regulated to state regulation and making it sound like the board was the Wild West. In some ways it was. But what they did and how, you know, they brought about organized trade. It definitely was a positive. You just anytime you have human beings and trade, there’s always going to be those few that are going to be looking for ways to benefit. So there definitely were some shenanigans.

 

Speaker 2  19:40

Want more agricultural market expertise. Listen to full episodes of the hedge edge podcast wherever you get your podcasts, or visit RCM, ag services.com get the complete market analysis and strategies you need to succeed.

 

Ben Hetzel  19:57

You can a wild west. Jeff, you’re I know you’re. Dying to jump on this. We have no government. USDA is not giving out reports.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  20:05

That’s right, that’s right. Ben, and that’s the part that he’s mentioned, the USDA didn’t exist back when the exchange started. The USDA effectively doesn’t exist today, because we don’t have a government operationally. And so you start to ask yourselves, the question is, how are we going to advance the needs that we have today for information without the USDA? And I’m going to go ahead and pose the question, do we even need the USDA anymore? After you know the innovation that could potentially happen as a

 

Fred Seamon  20:39

result. As of right now, we do, especially on the livestock side, feeder cattle is settled to our feeder cattle index, which is all based on USDA reported feeder cattle sales in the country and direct reports. We also use USDA reports for doing differentials in live cattle deliveries and lean hogs and pork cut out is all under mandatory price reporting. So one of the big things when you see a government shutdown coming, you know we always want to know is, is AMS market reporting going to be affected or not? And some of this, the shutdowns, they’ve been considered non essential, and those reports didn’t come out, and the exchange had nothing to to settle against. And other times they were deemed essential, and the reports continued to flow. Luckily, this time, the reports continued to flow at this point, so we haven’t had an adverse effect. And then on the grain side, you know, just having USDA price reporting adds additional trans transparency in the countryside relative to Chicago. So I think, you know, that’s a benefit to all. But, yeah, I mean that it’s we still rely pretty heavily on USDA, whether it’s for livestock settlements or for transparency when it comes to grains and oil seeds, and I should mention dairy too, that all is USDA based reporting as well. So we’d hate to see USDA go

 

Jeff Eizenberg  22:37

anywhere. Okay, so we’ll give them a break. They need to exist. Let’s get this government shut down, taken care of, and get these people back to work. Shifting gears a little bit, though, but similar topic, I do want to ask the question is from a research perspective, and as you start to think forward about news and information, you know, we’re having so many new private companies that have entered the market. We have private companies like stone X and many others that have existed over the years, and new ones are entering the marketplace for research yield updates, and we’re getting information from China and from Brazil, and you get all these questions of, How reliable is that data? How reliable is our own data? Are we going to eventually transition to a spot, kind of like when you and I were at the exchanges and the pit trade had existed, it was kind of slow. You mentioned it. People didn’t always get reported their trades in a timely manner to now it’s microseconds. Do you feel that perhaps, maybe even this government shutdown accelerates this but that we get to a point where the information is more real time and we rely on, call it an exchange of information, to truly understand where we are with yields and stocks and other things like that. Oh, I

 

Fred Seamon  24:04

feel for certain that we’re going to see incredible amounts of change going forward. The technology is just improving every day, right? And satellites, cameras, the I’m not one of these people that, oh my god, AI is going to replace people. I don’t believe that, but I think AI is going to be a good kind of first step for analyzing all of these data, and then people will ultimately, but it’ll be a massive amount of data that will come in, and the AI will make it manageable for a person to evaluate. So I think, yes, we will continue to see evolution, both in private companies, but also, I think at the USDA as well. We were just at an event at West Texas and a live cattle event. And, you know, some of the interesting things that they’re working on from that front. So I think there will be that, that evolution, and you will see a lot more data available in more real time or near real time, as we go forward. And that’s important. You know, one of my jobs at the exchange is new agricultural products. You know, me and my team are responsible for designing new agricultural futures contracts. And, you know, back in the floor days, and historically, that always meant physically delivered, right, you know, and that’s still the gold standard, don’t get me wrong. But bringing a physically delivered contract to market, you know, designing a delivery mechanism, getting firm signed up for, you know, participating in that. And, you know, it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort to do that, so the cost to bring a physically delivered contract to market is pretty high. So, you know, you’ve got to have, and again, it’s the gold standard. You would still do those, but you’ve got to have a lot of really strong supporting economics for the exchange to make that investment. But you have a lot of these, you know, firms, USDA data, but also, you know, price reporting agencies that are assessing, not just reporting markets, but assessing markets. And one of the areas that you know, we’ve had growth is the ability to bring cash settled contracts, based on these assessments, to market, and they’re a lot cheaper to bring to market. So things that historically probably would have never seen the light of day of a futures contract. The calculus is different just because the cost and the effort to bringing it is is there. So you know, that’s another area where we see a lot of evolution.

 

Speaker 2  27:10

If you’re enjoying today’s show, check us out on Facebook. Just search RCM, ag services for market updates and tips. Find us on Facebook today.

 

Ben Hetzel  27:22

Yeah, and I think one, one to call out that I recently learned about is the new fertilizer contract, the 10 ton, yeah, you know, I think that could be valuable. And there’s tons of arguments about size and and what the perfect fit would be, and is it more of a producer contract, or can commercials utilize it effectively and but I think it speaks to the innovation and some of what you’ve you’ve touched on today, and I think part of the challenges is promoting it and getting it utilized so that there’s plenty of liquidity and and and again, being cash settled makes that a more appealing situation.

 

Fred Seamon  28:05

Yeah, that’s been, you know, we’ve had fertilizer contracts for a long period of time, but they’re more wholesale directed contracts. And the idea was, hey, you know, could we package one of these and aim it more at the producer level. And that’s where the 10 ton came from. You know, the 10 ton urea. Let’s get some market makers involved. So there’s a good two sided market. And, you know, let’s put it out there. You know, that’s a major cost point for so many producers. And you know, a real inability to, you know, other than forward contracting. And then, you know, the elevators being able to have a tool to use. What could make better forward contracts to producers as well. But why can’t we do something at the producer level with respect to fertilizer, and this has been our first test case, and, you know, we’ve seen some uptake to it, so we’re still optimistic about it, but, you know, an idea that can certainly expand, you know, as we go kind of down from the wholesale level To the actual producer level with respect to fertilizer,

 

Ben Hetzel  29:22

I think every producer that that I deal with out here really recognizes the benefit of having a futures backed commodity with, you know, contract, because you take sunflowers and peas and and some of those type of products. A lot of the pulses are all the pulses, basically. And, you know, sunflowers can be really challenging to market, because there’s really no that gold standard you talked about having that backed by those contracts and and so thin markets. Obviously, the volumes dictate what, what? Makes sense to bring to market, but I think we all can really step back and realize that there’s a ton of value in and what’s what your company, the CME Group, and others, are doing, to bring these contracts to to the producers, or to the commercial side, or investors. And so I really, I think that’s a take home for people listening. Is this, this is a valid tool, and it’s been around a long, long time. It’s, it’s battle tested, it’s, it’s evolving still, and, and those are all great things, but really appreciate your insights. That’s that’s been fun to listen to that history, too.

 

Fred Seamon  30:40

Oh yeah, no, glad to share those things. And you know, that’s, that’s why we’re here. And, you know, I spend I’ve been here, you know, coming up on 24 years, and one of the big things for me is, you know, just because something didn’t work in the past does not mean that it won’t work in the future. So, you know, at least I, and I encourage my team to also not put on blinders. And, you know, it’s okay to evaluate something that maybe we tried, you know, a decade ago, 15 years ago, maybe the timings right now. So we work really hard to be non biased, and we are definitely customer driven, that’s for sure.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  31:29

Yeah, and we appreciate that tremendously, Fred. And you know the people that are listening here today, you recall the reason we brought this podcast on the radio and into the community and are taking taking your time and creating your time to listen is we want to focus on the importance of risk management and around producing crops, whether it’s corn, soybeans, wheat, you name it, trying to focus on helping people make the right decisions, forward thinking on how they actually are planning to sell and market their grain. And none of that exists without the exchange. And the exchange, again, the word innovation and willingness to continue to support the local communities. So for those that are that are listening, if you, if you have ideas of products that you’d love to hear or see. You can call us, you can text us, you can email us, and we’ll we’ll send it right out to chain to Fred. So the other way is obviously check in with Ben over at Scranton equity Co Op, and you know he’ll be able to explain all the different products that they use today, futures, options, some of the OTC solutions. And again, reminder, as we wrap up harvest and head out into the cold months that none of us want to talk about, that you still have grain in the bins, and we need to figure out the best timing to sell that, of course, but always think there’s opportunities to hedge manage risk and just put an offer out there to see if you can get something done. So thanks again to everyone who’s been listening and sharing their inputs, and thanks to Fred and Ben dear for all your time. It’s been a great it’s been a great week.

 

Ben Hetzel  33:19

Yeah, thanks Jeff, and thanks again, Fred, for bringing those insights. Good visit.

 

Fred Seamon  33:24

Yeah, thanks guys. Appreciate you having me.

09 Oct 2025

Grain Marketing Survival Guide: Insights from the Field

In this episode of The Hedged Edge podcast, hosts Jeff Eizenberg and Ben Hetzel discuss the current harvest season with guests Lacy Schatz from LJS Insurance Agency and Dwayne Bowman from Dakota Western Bank. They provide insights into harvest conditions across different regions, highlighting challenges like frost and dry weather. Lacey shares updates on crop insurance, including new program benefits for beginning farmers. Dwayne discusses the current interest rate environment and its minimal impact on agricultural operations. The team focuses on marketing strategies, emphasizing the importance of forward pricing, storing grain strategically, and having a comprehensive plan to manage market risks. They also address the mental health challenges farmers may face during difficult economic times and encourage producers to seek support and collaborate with their professional team. The episode offers practical advice for farmers navigating the complex agricultural marketplace, with a strong message of proactive planning and teamwork.

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Episode links: 

Listen on the radio at KNDC Radio  and KBJM Radio 

 

Check out the complete Transcript from our latest podcast below:

Grain Marketing Survival Guide: Insights from the Field

 

Jeff Eizenberg  00:52

Welcome to the next episode of The hedged edge. I’m your host, Jeff Eisenberg, and I’m here with my co host, Ben Hetzel. Ben, last week, we couldn’t record I apologize. That’s that’s on me. I lost my voice.

 

Ben Hetzel  01:06

Yeah, it was a bummer not to get to see you last week. Jeff, so glad we’re able to do this, and looking forward to our discussion today. I think it’ll be really educational. We got two great guests with us. We brought Dwayne Bowman back. He’s president of Dakota western bank and Bowman, well, he sits in Bowman, but he oversees numerous branches. And then we’ve got another guest that joined us today from the crop insurance side, so we’ll intro her in moment. Perfect.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  01:34

Yeah, excited to have the group back and Dwayne, thanks for again, for jumping back on today. Really what we want to do a quick update. We’re well into harvest here, so check in on harvest, but also talk a little bit about the fact that the crop insurance guarantees out there are likely not to pay off big payments, and that’s a reality that farmers have to think about, and everyone has to discuss. And so what are the real decisions that need to be made? What harvest marketing plan do you have and do the farmers in our area have that we can help advise on? Are they going to sell off the combines store until March or July? These are the million dollar questions that we’re going to jump into today. One extra thing we wanted to add here today is so when we’re talking about harvest and updates, we want to hear from you. We’ve talked about hitting us up on Twitter and Facebook let us know what’s happening in your area. So with that, Ben, let’s get a quick update on harvest. How’s things looking from your side?

 

Ben Hetzel  02:29

Now we come out of the small grains harvest here at drug into September, further than normal. It was a long Spring this year due to the moisture in our geography, so it seemed like it took a little longer to get this get this wheat harvest and the canola harvest done, plus some additional rains and and stuff going on during harvest, kind of delayed things for a lot of producers. So that’s pretty well wrapped up seeing some quality concerns in some areas on some of that. But now we’re kind of into the beans. Not as many bean acres out in this geography on the fringe out west here, but they’re rolling through that pretty fast. Quality is up and down as we talked, we froze, so we’ve got areas that definitely seeing some issues there. So it’ll be good to have that discussion with in regards to crop insurance as well. I think some guys have actually started rolling on some corn this this week, some drier regions where it’s a little lighter soil, and guys plant short maturity corn. So there’s a few guys going on corn, and it won’t be long, and we’ll see some sunflowers. They’re getting pretty black. So that’s kind of where we’re at with what’s going on out west here.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  03:46

I gotta mention you, you brought canola up. You dropped a little tidbit the other day when we were talking that you are one of the largest exporters of canola out of North America. Do you want to care to comment on that?

 

Ben Hetzel  04:03

We, as far as we can tell, we are the largest shipper of canola in the US, and that would put us at the top of the export category as well out of the US. So not a lot of us doing that, but it’s pretty cool to be on top.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  04:16

Oh yeah, everybody loves to be on top. That’s great. Well, congratulations.

 

Ben Hetzel  04:20

Thank you. My comment to you was, we’re going after the North American number. That’s a big number because there’s a lot of canola in Canada. So I think it’s here. I think I think we could make our mark.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  04:31

So love it. Well, I’ll give you a quick update. I think most listeners know by now I live in Ohio. Harvest update out here is, it is dry. Everything you hear on the news in the radio, which you read, it is super dry out here, and it’s been that way for for months. Actually, it was the driest August on record. And as I drove around and saw the fields from mid August all the way through Labor Day on through here in October. Um, not much has changed. Dust is in the air, and I expect the yields to be down significantly. So want to be sure to share that from boots on the ground out this way.

 

Ben Hetzel  05:11

Thanks for the update. We’re kind of hearing some of that same stuff that yields maybe are not what people thought in some spots, and just don’t always know boots on the ground, what’s really going on out there. So it’s good to hear.

 

Speaker 1  05:23

If you want to listen back to this episode or find past episodes of The hedged edge, visit kbjm.com or kndc radio.com under Listen Live and podcast options, or either stations, free mobile app under podcasts.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  05:39

Yeah, let’s change gears here a bit and bring in our additional guest. We have Lacey Schatz from LJ Insurance Agency. Lacey, are you? Are you with us? I am. Hi. How are you? Thanks for coming on. Yep, you bet. Well, we’re we’re jumping in. We just went over the harvest update, and want to check in on insurance. So we’re setting price right now for for corn in October, and you’ve already set the price for wheat, you’ve had quite a bit of volatile weather, which is pretty customary. You’ve got hail, tornadoes, freeze. Ben already mentioned, where all these things, where insurance comes into play. So my guess is, you’ve been pretty

 

Lacy Schatz  06:17

busy. We have, yep, that frost created quite a bit of work. But we’re really in kind of a wait and see situation to see what that corn comes in after test weight and things like that

 

Jeff Eizenberg  06:27

got it so the freeze mostly affected the corn, and that’s, that’s what your thoughts are.

 

Lacy Schatz  06:31

Yeah, some beans, the flowers, seem to fare pretty well. You know, the bean crop, I think overall, is going to be better than expected from the frost. But the corn, you know, it’s so variable. So from an insurance standpoint, we just kind of have to wait and see what it looks like when they get in

 

Jeff Eizenberg  06:45

there. Got it and the hail really hits those beans pretty hard as well.

 

Lacy Schatz  06:51

Yes, yes, we’ve had 14 pages of claims, so you know, from the hail and from the frost. So a lot of damage out there. Crop insurance really did a good job of taking care of the guys with with the hail in particular, just because commodity prices are so low, and crop insurance prices are, as you know, based on futures, so they were actually covered very well for those situations.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  07:13

Got it and your your read on the prices here the Fall Harvest prices versus the yield is that we’re really not looking at a claim for most other other than these acts of God, right?

 

Lacy Schatz  07:28

Yeah, you know, if you’re harvesting, you know, 30 to 35 bushel wheat, for whatever reason, you know those lower harvest prices are kicking in that revenue part of their insurance. But for the most part, yeah, we’re not seeing any claims with a bigger harvest. And we just need some commodity prices to go with it.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  07:45

That’s why we’ve got, we got Ben here to will the markets for us. But in the meantime, you know, there’s, there’s been quite a bit of discussion about the marketing plans that people are needed to think about here moving forward. And you know, insurance is always a part of everyone’s plan. Is there anything new that’s happening insurance wise? You mentioned when we talked offline, the big, beautiful Bill had had some elements to it that ultimately impact insurance. Anything you’d like to share with the listeners?

 

Lacy Schatz  08:19

Yeah, so if you’re a big SCO eco supplemental coverage. You know, if you like to buy those options, that subsidy has increased from 65 to 80% I have coded that for our Montana and South Dakota winter wheat guys. That is very, very inexpensive now. So those farmers will be happy to see that. The other big thing is the beginning farmer rancher program has been went from five to 10 years. So basically, if you’ve been farming less than 10 years, you want to make sure that you get re enrolled in that program. Agents should kind of be doing that automatically, but I would definitely make sure that you’re checking with your agent to make sure you’re getting re enrolled in that program. The other thing would be, there’s more premium support that came out of that bill for optional and enterprise units, it’s not, I don’t think when we quote in March, you’re going to be like, Oh my gosh, my crop insurance is way cheaper, but it is there nonetheless. So so positive things moving forward. You know, crop insurance isn’t perfect, but a lot of these things were steps in the right direction.

 

Ben Hetzel  09:18

So Lacey with the Beginning Farmer program. Did it outline the parameters? Are they extending the 100% of T yield? Or do you know any of that this juncture?

 

Lacy Schatz  09:31

Basically they just extended premium subsidy support. It varies by how many years you’ve been farming. The best is one to five, and then it tapers off the last through 10 So, but you really do notice those savings on, on, you know, on your quotes and your premium, there’s a little bit of a how it calculates in last year’s how it kind of preserves your Eph a little bit better than a farmer who’s not in the BFR program. But that’s getting in the weeds a little bit. But it’s mostly just that premium support, and 10 years is a long. Time I feel like for a guy to be in that program.

 

Ben Hetzel  10:02

So I just had one other thing. There’s been some talk about base acres and stuff. Was there much to that?

 

Lacy Schatz  10:13

You know, that, quite honestly, that is not quite as clear yet. You know, that’s not so much an RMA as a USDA situation, and there’s not a whole lot of clarity how that’s going to work, yet. There is some material I could send out if needed, but I’m not very versed on that, just because it’s more the USDA. One other thing I will mention for 2026 is there may be a program. It’s briefly come out. The details are now, but it’s called clip, and that could be basically characterized as like a blanket for your crop insurance, like an overall coverage situation. So as we get more information on that, we can certainly get that out, you know, to everyone, but it’s just, it’s just something that’s briefly been mentioned at

 

Ben Hetzel  10:56

this point. So you don’t have an opinion on on that at this stage. It’s still, too early.

 

Lacy Schatz  11:02

I guess for me, it would really need to be quoted, and then I would have a pretty strong opinion on whether it was something a person should do or not. You know, our agency, we’re big into the whole farm revenue protection program. We really like the coverage that that provides. I feel that it’s this very strong program above and beyond typical multi payroll insurance. So I guess we’re just gonna have to see the mechanics and the pricing of it first.

 

Ben Hetzel  11:25

Yeah, I’m glad you mentioned that, because I think that’s kind of your mantra, saving producers money, protecting their investment, you know, all the way through. And that’s something that that I know that you’ve been actively involved in your career at the federal level and some boards in different committees or whatever that you’ve sat on, bring a wealth of knowledge in this crop insurance arena back to the producers in southwest North Dakota, Montana and Northwest South Dakota. So really appreciate those insights Absolutely. Last

 

Jeff Eizenberg  11:57

question I have for you, Lacey cattle price is still at all time highs here. How about the LRP insurance? You are you seeing a lot of renewed interest in that, with markets trending this way?

 

Lacy Schatz  12:11

Yeah, yep, there’s a lot of interest in LRP. One thing I would encourage ranchers to have a look at is insuring at like a 92.5% level instead of 100% level, you’re still getting really, really good coverage there, but you’re getting a higher subsidy, and it’s much more affordable. So that would be my very important thing. I would tell ranchers when they’re looking at LRP, but it is a strong program, and it’s, it’s nice to have that option. I mean, ranchers, I feel like ranchers don’t have the protections that farmers often do, so it’s nice to see LRP working really well for them right now.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  12:43

That’s great advice. Thank you so much for that.

 

Speaker 1  12:47

Want more agricultural market expertise. Listen to full episodes of the hedge edge podcast, wherever you get your podcasts, or visit RCM, ag services.com get the complete market analysis and strategies you need to succeed. Shit.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  13:02

Shifting gears a bit over into the macro side of things, big picture. We’ve got Dwayne, you’re at the bank. We’ve got interest rates have been cut. They’re forecasted cut a bit even further. How are you how are things shaking out at the bank? People thinking easy money is going to be better move forward.

 

Dwayne Bowman  13:21

Good question. Thanks again for having me on and up and Jeff, you know, the Fed is definitely in a difficult position right now. It’s going to depend on the strength of the economy going forward. There’s definitely a push and pull effect in place right now, and it’s going to be interesting to see wins. Obviously, we know the direction Trump wants to see interest rates go and Powell doesn’t seem to necessarily agree and and the economy ultimately probably be what decides that makes that decision. Right now, the biggest concern is probably stagflation. So it will be interesting to see how between unemployment numbers, inflation, the impact on tariffs, all that shakes out. But the expectation, you know, we just did see the Fed dropped interest rates quarter percent. The expectation is still probably at least another quarter percent before year end, possibly two rate cuts. We might see a half percent cut before year end, and then another drop is expected in 2026 but you know, really, when you look at it, Jeff, it’s, it’s a pretty minimal impact on the overall impact on a on the farmer, rancher. Right now, you know if, if your input costs are $200 an acre, and last year, you know, for instance, if you were paying 9% this year, you’re paying 7% you know you’re talking maybe about a $4 an acre savings. So it is not, it’s not substantial enough to have a huge

 

Jeff Eizenberg  14:36

impact. And then the other element comes, as we’re in the harvest season, is cash versus carry. Obviously, you just mentioned paying down an operating line. That might be nine that’s ideal. But at the same time, there’s carry on the board and there’s potential opportunities ahead. What is your position or thoughts from the from the bank side, you prefer farmers to kind of true up? And get back to square one with you here by the end of the year, or you like to see him carry and hold on into next year? Yeah.

 

Dwayne Bowman  15:06

You know, the anticipation that I have is that they’re gonna hang on to it, but they’re gonna carry it for a while. So, you know. And there is a cost, obviously, to doing that, you know, Ben, what is what storage cost? It’s grand equity

 

Ben Hetzel  15:17

now, six cents, which is too cheap for the carry in the market for sure, yeah.

 

Dwayne Bowman  15:22

So six cents, you know, you look at the course, if they hold on to that for 12 months, then you’re talking 72 cents. So, you know, almost, almost a buck a bushel to hang on to it for a year. You know, we talked, I talked to a lot of my producers last year on interest rates, on the cost of hanging on to it because of, you know, it’s sitting on an inventory loan, if it’s sitting on their operating loan. And last year, you know, when one grain was say, let’s use wheat and say, $6 a bushel, they’re hanging on to that, and they’re paying 9% interest. You’re talking 54 cents to hang on to it for years. So between storage and between the cost of of interest, of hanging on to that you’re looking at, you know, $1.30 or more a bushel, they certainly didn’t see $1.30 rally. They saw it go the other way, about $1.30 so a tremendous cost to hang on to it, but yet, as low as it is this year, so now we’re talking, say, $5 wheat and 7% interest rates. So now you’re looking at maybe 35 cents a year to hold, so a little less cost to hold. So I think you’re definitely going to see that gamble, that they’re going to hang on to it, that they’re going to see this market rally. You know, I’m not saying that’s the right thing, or what banks want to see, but that’s certainly the expectation. I think. What we saw, and could probably attest to this as well, that the sell, the selling that was taking place at harvest was probably because they didn’t have the storage, the only reason it was coming to town.

 

Ben Hetzel  16:39

And even post harvest, we’re seeing that push, like, I need 40,000 room for this. And, you know, whatever, the guys that bag, obviously, they have endless storage for a time. But, yeah, it’s, it’s kind of interesting. One of the things that I want to throw out there, too is we’ve seen a lot of bugs in the new harvested grain coming in this year, grain weevils in the field. I’ve seen it before. Actually was on a grain bin during harvest when my dad was cutting wheat years back, and that was the first time I’d ever seen it. I did not realize those burgers were in there, but the bin top was covered. And I was talking to a farmer the other day, and I said, you know, be on the lookout, because these bugs are in there. And if guys just throw it in these bins and don’t don’t condition it, and don’t pay attention to it. Come back in December, January, February, we’re gonna have bugs. And so anyway, we’re seeing some problems already with old stored grain because of the moisture. So we’ve had some bug issues, and guys got to be aware of that. And the reason I bring that up is, you talk about interest costs? Well, there’s other costs to carrying grain. You’ve got insurance. It’s on on that grain that you should be carrying insurance anyway, and of those inventories, and then also the quality concern, you got to keep, keep it in condition. So you’re likely running fans. Electric costs are, are not cheap to run those things, and so there’s additional cost to it. And in a year where guys are trying to figure out, especially on weed, how much am I going to lose per acre, these costs can start adding up pretty fast.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  18:16

That’s a great point. Then you’ve got shrink in there as well. That’s important to think about. And one thing that you mentioned in one of our last episodes, Ben, and I’d love to get Dwayne’s perspective on this or position, is that the reality is people are going to store grain. Dwayne, you just said it, they are. But my question, and what we really would need to drive towards is helping people to realize that they should be thinking about marketing the grain that they’re going to store in advance, because you mentioned Ben the last time that every year, no matter what people are thinking, I’m not going to market my grain until I harvest it. Well, they have grain left over already, and they’re going to plan to refill their bins at least, at least partially. So what I’d like to hear from Dwayne, do people constantly have grain in their bins that is unmarketed and should be forward priced?

 

Dwayne Bowman  19:12

Yeah, I guess I can start on that, you know? And, and, yes, we would love to see that grain move a little quicker, because then we know where we’re at. You know, Lacey talked about this as well. We’re still in this wait and see pattern, you know, see how that corn comes in, see the condition, the quality of the wheat that they’re going to sell. So at this point, we really have no idea what their loss is going to be. We expect there’s going to be a loss. We know that. You know, even with with record, record, I guess, but you know, above, well above average yields this year, with the price that we’re having and the discounts that are going to be there between, you know, like corn or or quality issues on the on the wheat side, we know there’s going to be some losses. So we would love to see that going to town a little bit earlier, just so we could, as a bank, that we could see where these producers are at start making some plans. You know, we know we’re going to have to be capitalizing some losses. Unfortunately. It’s never a good position to be in. But the earlier we can make those decisions, the earlier we can sit down with customers and start putting together plans, the better off we are. So yes, that’s the encouragement we’re going to have. Is them meeting with talking to van, talking to brokers, and seeing, okay, what can we do if we need to sell this, if we start moving this now, avoid some interest cost, avoid some storage costs, but we still want to have some upside on that market. You know what the market does rally. How can we leave that open? So that’s the decisions we want them to be talking to somebody on making some plans if

 

Speaker 1  20:29

you’re enjoying today’s show, check us out on Facebook. Just search RCM, ag services for market updates and tips. Find us on Facebook today.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  20:42

Yeah. And Ben in terms of opportunities at the elevator for HTAs and forward pricing and forward contracting. What are some of the solutions that you’re suggesting and talking to people about and brainstorming ideas on right now? Well, we’ve talked

 

Ben Hetzel  20:59

about it before, Jeff, and and this isn’t anything new to Dwayne, either. You know, it’s the basic to arrive contracts selling the carries. You know, we’re getting to a time in the year where you start to see that Jan, Feb, March, bid out there. Basis is historically pretty wide right now. We’ve seen this basis in these, this kind of territory we’re trading in right now, for the last few years, it’s, it’s not uncommon for us to be 7080, even, unfortunately, 90 under. It used to be crazy, crazy, wide years ago, but it seems like it’s more the norm now, to be, you know, above 60 under, for for wheat anyway, and and we haven’t seen it as much in corn. Corn is still maintaining more of a traditional baseline basis that 50 to 70 under out our way. It does narrow up at times, but it seems like that’s year in and year out. It’s it’s right in there. So that one is a little bit probably more palatable to the grower to see that basis that we’re experiencing today. But it’s really the wheat one that’s, I think it’s got all of the producers kind of perplexed, a little bit like, am I going to get a basis break here and post harvest? And is this, you know, maybe we catch a rally on the board, we can pick up 40 cents somewhere in this market, you know. And my my suggestions have been to quite a few producers, you know, you got to start planning out, you know, your logistics and when you want to get into the elevator, because with big crops come congestion, and not everybody. It seems like when, when basis does move, everybody wants to sell, and then it forces basis back out. Or if there’s a big futures rally, everybody piles on, and then, you know, you got basis just in shambles then. And so we really need to be watching these individually, like you said last episode, Jeff, we have to, we have to segregate them out and start working on them individually. If futures are what looks like the opportunity to take advantage of, let’s be doing that with hedge to arrives or or in in our own account with our brokerage firm. You know, we can, we can help with all of that and get things set up for a producer. So outside of that, you know, basis, there’s, there’s carries in the futures, and there’s, there’s a narrower basis out on the horizon. So maybe just have that conversation. But can I lock in flat price basis, or flat price, you know, just to be done with marketing some grain, because most guys are sitting there with almost all of it unprotected, you know, whether it’s corn, wheat, you know, we have moved a tremendous amount of canola, and I think we’re going to be way ahead of last year’s pace by the turn of the calendar. So guys have really taken advantage of a market that is profitable, which is good, experiencing a lot of congestion on that, but that’s, it’s at least a positive sign that guys are taking advantage of certain commodities that are crops are growing and hitting those markets that that are paying them a premium, you know, to what some of the other ones are, and they can, they can lock in some profits.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  24:25

That’s good, good advice. And then the other thing that we’ve talked about before, and I think it’s worth repeating here, is that we can’t just look what’s right in front of us. We have to look ahead. We got to look, possibly even looking at the 26 crop already. There’s some decent prices on the board due to the carry that it’s built in. And it’s going to be important as we move through this harvest and then get to the beginning of the year to see if we can identify some of those profitable levels that are looking attractive, at least, you know, break even now, if you forward sell and it’s at a break even price, if. Course you’re not happy that it’s break even, but is break even better than losing money, and if your worst sale is a break even price, because the market rallies, so be it. That’s, that’s where averages come in and come into play. So always reminder, keep ahead.

 

Ben Hetzel  25:18

Yeah, that’s perfect, Jeff, because that’s, that’s really what they have to do is work on an average. It’s, it’s not swinging for the home run. It’s, as we’ve referenced baseball terms in the past, on marketing, it’s singles and doubles and and just chipping away at it. You know, even in in our business, in the Co Op, we don’t always just take the full chunk right off, off the map, you know, we we layer into things, whether it’s inputs or or even our marketing strategy for what we anticipate growers to do, which we got to be careful, obviously, because we are expected to deliver on that, that contract, because we’re not just out there, you know, gambling In the market. So, but you do have to forecast some things, and you have to forecast freight. So there is risk in this deal for for everybody. And so layering in and having a position is is the ticket. Well, it’s no different for a producer, they should have a position other than just all cash, you know, throughout the year. And to your point, we need to be looking out further and further. And one tool that we’ve used a lot, and this feeds into what Dwayne mentioned, is selling some grain with some upside opportunity. Obviously, the changes in the Minneapolis market, as you’re familiar with, Jeff, and we’ve talked about it in our marketing meetings that we’ve had, the options kind of went away, and that was a nice tool when it worked for the producers to re own grain or take some premiums out of the market for selling grain. The quotes I’ve been running on some OTC stuff aren’t real great, but it does give you something. You know, if you are selling grain anyway and you’ve got a lot to market, that tool is a pretty good, pretty good tool. We’ve used it a ton. They do have double up features on a lot of those where you might potentially market twice the amount of grain on that contract is what you originally put up face face value. But if you’re sitting on tons of inventories, and you’ve got time to market it, and that’s what your plan is. Anyway, it works really well.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  27:29

Oh yeah, there’s there’s plenty of tools out there. The question is, are producers willing to have the tough conversation about getting ahead? And that’s what we’re talking about here today, is getting ahead and realizing that there’s strong yields out there this year, you’re going to carry a lot of grain from this season into next at least, you’re going to be storing it. You’ll be looking for new basis opportunities, of course, but at the end of the day, there’s always going to be grain in the bin that needs a home and needs a price, and that’s the piece that Ben myself, our team, we’re happy to talk with with you about it at any time, is, you know what price is right and what is your I would price, what Ben’s talking about, about the OTC and some of the structures that are done through cash contracts. By coming up with an I would sell price. Ben and the team can reverse engineer a price for you to say, Okay, here’s the risk of taking on that type of a trade. So a lot to a lot of education goes into learning about these products and learning about these these sale opportunities, and other people also interested in re owning the board. You know, you hear that a lot. And if you are going to sell off the combine this year, and you feel that there’s going to be a rally, or we think the markets are going to trend higher, maybe China comes in and buys from us, we don’t know. There’s always ways that you can re own the board in order to participate in the upside.

 

Ben Hetzel  29:00

Yeah, and one comment on that, you brought up China. I was listening to a webinar analyst, and they made the reference to the tariffs, and we didn’t really talk about it yet. But you know, the conversation around Trump saying, use tariff money to pay, you know, just send some of that back to the farmers. He wants to use some of it for for some help there. And China. China and Japan are the two that have been hit the hardest by the tariffs with the US. And so here we are on one side. We’re hoping that China wants to eagerly come buy our goods all the while we’re hitting them the hardest with our tariffs, I don’t that should not be back to the marketing strategy is not built on hope. There would be a lot of hope in that statement, you know, and so having a plan and looking out it’s tough to do, especially when they’re in the field, doing the work they don’t. Want to be thinking about this stuff. It’s the prices are flat, pressing, and that’s causing a lot of problems as well, mental mental health issues for people, and thankfully, these rural communities have a ton of help on that front as well. We haven’t touched on that topic, but there’s help out there. And definitely encourage people. If you feel like you’re you’re struggling, reach out and people listening that see it or see changes in behaviors, speak up, because it’s real. And aside from that, there’s tools out there. We’ve referenced them, but in addition, we’ve also talked about the team, your team, well, that includes Dwayne for DWB and their customers, or whatever the bank is, there’s crop insurance. You know, we’ll sit down together, all of us, and have conversations around, how can we help? Or what? What should this look like in a situation where that customer wants to engage that conversation with all of us in the room and try to try to make a plan together how we how we pull through it, especially if we’re leveraging losses and trying to, you know, provide some gap financing for guys and and in their operations. And so that team is super critical in tough times, and I think we’re going to have to see more of that joint conversation going forward.

 

Dwayne Bowman  31:24

That’s a really good point, man, you know, it’s, I see this as a so much different time than the 80s, you know, right now, I think we have so much better resources. We are partners. We’re in this together, you know, between the equity the banks, you know, we nobody wants to see anybody failing. So we’re everything’s going to be done possible to help people get through these difficult times. And, you know, we can’t sit here and, have you said, and have the expectation or have the hope, you know, we have to start putting together a plan. I do hope there’s going to be some government payments, some disaster payments coming out, but right now, with the government shutdown, you know, that’s probably going to be delayed, most likely going to be a new Farm Bill put in place in the next, you know, hopefully few months, but that’s really on hold right now too. And hopefully the timing of, you know, as low as commodity prices are will actually be a good time for a new farm bill to be issued. But although that’s kind of on hold right now,

 

Jeff Eizenberg  32:13

no, thank you guys both, and it’s been a great episode. You know, the reality is that you’ve both just said it this fall is not about waiting or hoping for insurance or hoping for the market to rally or hoping for a government payment. It’s about making real decisions. It’s about whether you should haul a green to town put it in the bin. Either way, you have to have a plan. And the reality is, the most expensive thing moving forward, other than storage, is indecision. So let’s, let’s make this fall a great fall. Let’s get excited about the great crop that you guys have just harvested. Bring it. Bring it to town. Get it on the board, get it sold, and let’s look the next year to hope for some good prices, but realize that we need to have a plan and use your team, as Ben said, to team around you to help help make those decisions become a reality. So thank you guys both, again. Reminder to our listeners that we want to hear from you. Tell us what you’re doing this fall. Let us know what you have going on with your harvest. How do things look? How do the crops look? And what is your strategy? You can reach us at 888752110, and we’ll tackle all that in our next episodes. Thanks again,

 

Ben Hetzel  33:25

guys. Thank you, Jeff and thank you. Thanks again, Dwayne for jumping on with us and really appreciate Lacy Schatz and LJS Insurance for stepping in with us today. That was super cool to have her on.

02 Feb 2023

Old & New Crop Risk Management Strategies & 2023 Market Outlook

As we start 2023 – the stakes could not be higher for the agriculture sector! The world population is growing rapidly, crossing 8 Billion in November of last year. Due to the historic drought and war, there are lower stocks of the major grain supplies globally. Energy and interest rates have accelerated rapidly vs. this time last year, leading to higher input costs and raising the break-even levels for farmers and end users to unprecedented levels…plus there is still a war going on. To help give us some insight and answers to what lies ahead, we’re lucky to have two highly respected panelists with us today from both the banking and commodity risk management sides of the business; Rebecca King, Old National’s Agriculture Group, and Jody Lawrence, RCM Ag Services.

Webinar links:

 

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Check out the complete Transcript from this week’s podcast below:

Old & New Crop Risk Management Strategies & 2023 Market Outlook

 

Jeff Eizenberg  00:14

Welcome to the hedge edge by RCM AG Services where we’re getting out of the field and onto the mic to bring you weekly market updates, commentary from commodity experts in monthly interviews with the biggest names in agribusiness. Welcome to the old new crop risk management strategies and 2023 agricultural market outlook webinar. I’m your host, Jeff Eisenberg on the managing director for our RCM AG Services, and host of the RCM AG podcast, The Hedged Edge, be sure to follow us on YouTube and Twitter. I’ll put the links inside the chat here in a little bit. So today, really, as we started 2023, the stakes couldn’t be higher in the agriculture sector. The world population is growing at a rapid pace, we’ve crossed 8 billion as of last November, in terms of population across the world. There are lower stocks of our major grain supplies globally, due to the historic drought and continued war in interest rates have accelerated rapidly versus this time last year, lead to higher input costs, and raising the breakeven levels for both farmers and end users to unprecedented level levels. Oh, yeah, just like I just said, there’s still a war going on. So we got to remember that. So anyway, to help give us some insight and answers to what lies ahead. We’re lucky to have two highly respected panelists with us today, from both the banking side community and the risk management side of the business. Welcome, Rebecca. And Jody,

 

Rebecca King  01:54

thank you.

 

Jody Lawrence  01:55

Thank you, Jeff.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  01:57

Yes, great. Well, it’s, it’s nice to be talking with you both today. I know it’s snowy here, we got a snow day for the kids in Ohio. You know, it’s been a wild, wild year. What we’d like to do here today is what we’ll do kind of a brief intro and bio for both of you, and then jump into some questions for Rebecca. And then Jody’s got a nice presentation for us on the status of the world when it comes to agriculture. So throughout the time, encourage anyone who’s listening to type questions inside the chat, you can send those messages will either address them in real time as they come through or perhaps at the end. So the more questions of course, the better. Everybody likes questions. And so without further ado, let me let me introduce our two panelists. First of all, we have Rebecca King. She is the Senior Vice President of Old National Agriculture group. She has over 25 years of banking experience, and takes the time to gain an understanding of your client’s needs and then works to tailor those needs into a plan to fit each individual operation. Rebecca oversees the Ag banking relationship team. The Ag portfolio of Old National is geographically diverse across the upper Midwest. So again, welcome Rebecca. Thank you so much, Jeff. Absolutely. And Jody Jody Lawrence. Jody is the head of research for RCM ag services. Jody began his career as an accountant. After receiving a degree from Memphis State University in 1989. You gotta take that year off your bio, God makes me sound old.

 

Jody Lawrence  03:38

I think the beard takes care of that. Nobody, nobody really cares. They care that I graduated, but the beard kind of gives it away that I am not a Gen X or,

 

Jeff Eizenberg  03:48

Fair enough. Fair enough. Shortly after, Jody started working with farmers and business and marketing plans, which ultimately ultimately led to the founding of strategic trading advisors in 1999, a consulting brokerage firm with a well followed daily newsletter, Jodi’s research and agmarkets now attracts more than 7000 farmers across 33 states, opening up a tremendous network of ag specialists across the grain and meat complex for which Jody to draw upon and assisting select clients in structuring agriculture hedging the futures and options markets. So again, welcome Jody, appreciate you taking the time while you’re on the road.

 

Jody Lawrence  04:30

Thank you, Jeff. Good to be here. Rebecca. Good to see you again.

 

Rebecca King  04:33

You too, Jody.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  04:35

So so let’s let’s start here. Again, the world is volatile. There’s a lot going like a little bit of q&a here with Rebecca. We’ll start on the banking side. Yeah, so Rebecca, oh, let me Don’t let me forget this part. We do need to move forward with our disclaimer and reminder all that there are risks. So when With that, we’ll skip over to two old national, Rebecca Old National, really, you were working with first Midwest and then was acquired by old national last year, you’ve had an excellent transition, you’ve got an awesome team, that we’ve had a chance to meet with ourselves. And, you know, it’s growing. So before we kind of get into, you know, what’s happening in markets, could you just give us an update on the transition and all the good things about Old National?

 

Rebecca King  05:29

Sure, absolutely. Thank you. So first Midwestern, Old National completed their merger in July of 2022. We brought together agricultural professionals from each bank to form one team, which is called the Ag vertical, we have about 25 members that are completely dedicated to agriculture on the sales, the credit and the customer support side. All of these individuals have farm backgrounds, either directly continuing to farm with their families, or having been raised on a farm. Myself, I farm with my husband in west central Illinois. So all of these personal experiences really help us to bring to the table and understanding of your business, and how things are going for you because we’re experiencing the same things. One of the great things about our merger is that we’ve really expanded our footprint. So Jeff has that on a slide here, I don’t know if it’s possible to make that any bigger or not Jeff, but you can see where the blue dots are. Those are locations with national locations. Not all of them are ag locations. But that is where our primary business is located, as we said earlier in the Upper Midwest, so our dedicated ag bankers are in more of our rural locations. We also have in 2022, added an agribusiness piece. We previously were very heavily centered in production agriculture. But we have added agribusiness by hiring an agribusiness expert who’s actually working out of our St. Louis office. And he is touring around the footprint, meeting agribusiness prospects, and also speaking with other financial institutions with regards to working with them on some of their larger agribusiness clients. So we feel very fortunate to be part of such a large organization and have the reach that we do. And our merger of is behind us now. So it’s all forward looking for 2023. And I would any other questions you have with regards to the bank, I’m happy to answer. Perfect.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  07:48

That’s that’s super helpful. And I guess when we were meeting in December, you also offer added adding an office in Ohio as well, Cleveland area.

 

Rebecca King  07:58

Yeah, in the Cleveland area, those are primarily healthcare specialists in the Cleveland area. But we definitely can talk to customers in the Ohio region, as we as that is considered part of old national banks footprint.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  08:13

Perfect. So sounds, yeah, like good, good opportunity to grow, especially, you know, matching both the farmer and the commercial side, there seems to be some nice synergies that could develop out of that, as well. So I’m going to go ahead and stop the screen share for a minute, we’ll just kind of go back and forth with each other. And Jody, of course, if you have questions here to jump in. But let’s just let’s just jump into it here. Rebecca. I mean, people that are listening, we’ve talked to you at the beginning, interest rates are way different than they were a year ago. And since you’re in banking, I know it’s not the most fun thing to talk about. But it’s probably on everybody’s mind. You know, where are we here with the the interest rates and two things. One, I can say it and maybe your compliance doesn’t want you to, but I think we’re probably nearing the end of the tightening of the tightening schedule, you know, another 50 base, maybe a point. But so there’s more risk, the major part of the risk is gone. But how is that impacting and affecting both agribusiness on the buy side, production side, etc, from the people you’re talking to?

 

Rebecca King  09:27

Sure. Well, I think this kind of summed it up. I had a meeting with a client last week, and I said, What’s, what’s the biggest challenge you’re facing in 2023? And he said interest rates. And I think that was right on interest rates are twice of what they were one year ago, when we would have been having a similar conversation. You’re welcome to predict I don’t have a crystal ball. But we do know the Fed is meeting next week. We know that with certainty and there’s a very high probability that we’ll see another rate increase of 25 to 50. debase points, I think we’re all hopeful that the end is in sight. And that 2023, we’ll start to perhaps even see a stability towards the second half of the year and rates. So that being a very large part of a farmer’s budget, it makes me want to recommend to everyone that they’re really doubling down on, you know, on their pencil, penciling of all of their expenses. And really being aware of where that interest expense is affecting them. Certainly, as a banker of interest rates are high topic of conversation with each one of our customers. So we have those every time we meet with them. But taking a look at other areas of expense and making sure that your production costs are where they need to be. This is this is a definite threat to profitability down the road. So before we’re looking, pay attention to where you are, pay attention to your marketing, take advantage of the prices available to you when they are available to you. We can’t change the interest rates, but we can sort of massage what we’re doing around them until we start to see things change and hopefully, some sort of relief, you know, in 2024.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  11:18

Right, yeah, I mean, relief. The government likes to give us all money. So hopefully soon enough, they’ll want to give it give it to us again. In the meantime, as we’ll talk here with with Jody shortly, you know, the reality is, it’s a new world, in terms of breakevens as you’re talking and costs. And, you know, last year was largely, hopefully wildly profitable for a lot of farmers and other agri businesses. But it’s last year’s crop is financing this year’s crop, and it’s going to that cycle continues. Where are you seeing from your customers, and from the bankers that you’re in your network? Where are they seeing the breakevens, particularly on the production side, kind of coming in for corn and beans. And, you know, we could talk how that reflects today’s price after that.

 

Rebecca King  12:13

Sure. And I mean, let me just caveat that every producer is going to have a different set of costs based on the number of acres that they’re farming. So I’m not going to give you like specific numbers that you should this should be your cost of production. But from the analysis that we’ve done, we definitely see that corn input expenses have increased by at least 10% year over year. And if you go back two years, it’s almost a 50% increase, it can be almost a 50% increase. So that’s significant for beans, beans don’t have quite the big jump, I would say that for the last year over a year, maybe a 5% increase in producing your beans. And bean prices have remained very strong. And I know I’m not Jody, so I’m not going to go down that path. But I believe that when you’re looking at your mix of corn and beans, you’ve got to take into consideration where are you going to make the most profit, you know, for the coming year, and then make plans accordingly. So it’s a significant issue. And if you don’t understand where your costs are, now is definitely the time to meet with your banker. And you know, get the help, you need to be able to determine how your profitability is going to be impacted for 2023.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  13:28

Yeah, that’s good. And we kind of run some numbers Jody, where we add, generally $1,000 for corn 800 for beans,

 

Jody Lawrence  13:36

might be a little bit lower on veins than that. But it’s certainly, as Rebecca pointed out, costs have really gone up as we’ve emerged from the pandemic, because you’re you’re in a position where nobody really understood about, you know, the manufacturing and everything that was going on what could have happened in the supply availability in 2020, and 21 of fertilizers. But then as prices have risen in corn and beans because of weather markets, and yield loss and northern sun sets, the northern and southern hemispheres, the manufacturers at the highest level of those products, the CFC, the mosaics of the world have increased their prices because they know that they have some margin while there is you know, coming out of a couple really strong years on farm from a cash perspective from everybody so it Yeah, cost farming is expensive. I get asked the question all the time, when’s the price of land going to stabilize? I think everybody’s now just hoping for stabilization rather than actually thinking the price of land may go down. But really the bottom line on everything is as long as the production continues to rise in that acre, the APA H is increase year after year after year, the value of that land will hold at worst, very steady. And then if you get in a situation where you have very motivated buyers, we have seen some really astronomical sale prices that just don’t, they don’t pencil land and the old way of buying farmland, but you look at farmland now, it’s not the means to the end that you have to have land rented or owned, to be able to farm. It’s now an investment vehicle for so many others in the industry, people that have sold land and have a 1031 transfer come in, and they don’t want to pay any taxes. So they pay more than historically it would have brought from a production standpoint, you have neighbors bidding against each other, sometimes in a friendly, friendly competition, and sometimes in an unfriendly competition. And then and there’s generational transfer of the land and up the farm and up the wealth that we’re seeing. You had grandparents farm and you’ve got a lot of grandparents not on the farm, who when they’re fortunate enough to inherit this, don’t understand the economics, the people that are farming it, all they see is an income producing asset, like a mutual fund or a CD or something and they want to maximize the value of that. And they though they get lost in the pursuit of some dollars, at the expense of the relationships from the people that have been farming it for years, decades, maybe even generations. So farming is expensive. And it starts with the land. And as the price of corn and beans, the variance there and the volatility and those prices. That’s what we’re seeing now with high prices to start the year. We’re saying the high input prices falling.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  17:07

Yeah, thank you for that, Jody. And I’m guessing it was an old national that financed that $27,000 per acre purchase in Nebraska. Rebecca,

 

Rebecca King  17:16

probably not. But if it was they had some good equity in that purchase.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  17:21

Yeah, yep. Exactly. Exactly. Very good. So Rebecca, I just want to finish up with you. And we’ll jump over to Jodi, he made a comment and you’ve commented already. The importance of risk management today is is essential. And so what are you talking to? How are you talking to your customers about that? What percentage of your customers are typically forward pricing versus those that probably shouldn’t be?

 

Rebecca King  17:51

I think that those who forward price have are usually the customers that are farming, greater number of acres, but that doesn’t mean that everyone can’t forward price. You know, it’s a cost of production, as we talked about, some clients would prefer to segregate that cost off into a separate note, separate loan, that they’re just accounting for their costs of their marketing activities, right? That’s something that we do, you can call it a hedge line of credit, or you can call it a marketing note. We can call it any anything you really want to know. But it serves a purpose really to show what you’re spending, and are you getting the return for the activity that you’re doing. So it is good to keep that separate? In some cases, some of our clients don’t do as much and they just continue that through their regular operating line of credit. But we do discuss the need to either, even if it’s just working with your local elevator, doing something, having a plan, paying attention to the advice that God gives, and making sure that you’re understanding that what’s available to you today may not be available to tomorrow. And if you do some sensitivity and your cash flow, you’re going to know what your best cost or excuse me what your best price is going to be. And it allows you to really focus on that this is the right time of year to be doing that. So that as you get busy in the field and other things, take your attention away, if you really know what their breakeven prices and where you want to be on your marketing. as things change quickly, and you’re not always able to be sitting in front of your computer. You have that in the back of your mind doing that pre work. And certainly working on that with your banker is also really important so that they have the confidence that you know what you’re looking for.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  19:48

Yeah, thank you and obviously we’ve had a chance to meet your team and everyone is got a exceptional amount of experience and giving that guidance and feedback and you know, obviously we’re Working with you guys to, you know, share some of the content and recommendations that that are out there as well. So from our side, so that’s super helpful. Rebecca, was there any other comments or questions you had for Jodi right before we shift the show over to him, and then come back at the end.

 

Rebecca King  20:20

I’m happy to take any questions from the participants at the end. God always gives a great presentation. So looking forward to seeing what he’s got for us today.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  20:31

Excellent. So without further ado, I do see some questions coming in, related to price and input costs. And so we’ll, we’ll address those, you know, throughout and or near the end. So thank you continue to please ask the questions. And I’ll help source them. And you know, what, what Jody and Rebecca and I can help answer. So, Rebecca, thank you very much. Looking forward to flip it over here to Jodi. So without further ado, Jodi, I’m going to share the screen. And then if you need me to move slide, just go ahead and say Slide No, and I’ll flip it. So you should now see

 

Jody Lawrence  21:09

the screen. Yep, I can see it. Thank you, Jeff. Apologize, up, I got a bottle of water. And I might do a little bit of coughing, winter cold travel cold, as they always said in but I appreciate everybody logging in today to follow through with this and just kind of see what we’re thinking about the markets. As you can see from the title, the changing dynamics for markets, and 23, their variety of things that we think 2023 will see pretty noticeable change, if not very sizable change in from 21 and 22. From a production standpoint, from a weather standpoint, pricing standpoint, let you look at outside events. We already talked about the Federal Reserve and the interest rates. But just so many things, we think this is one of those very transitional years, that last year’s marketing plan, really the past two years marketing plan where you were able to be patient, or procrastinate, depending on which one of those you really want to label it. The markets kept going up because South America had a bad crop. And then the US got off to a tough start. In April May when December corn rallied for 21 Straight trading days. And everybody was richly rewarded for holding on to their grain. But we’re getting to a point now where that philosophy we don’t believe is solid anymore, heading for what we know and what we’re seeing in 23. So I’m gonna talk a lot about the changes that we see coming and hopefully how we can address those Mike Tyson, famous American philosopher that everybody knows was a particular favorite of mine. In high school and college watching him box, it was a little bit like watching Tiger Woods when he was at his peak and golfer Jack Nicklaus. And, you know, Joe Montana or Tom Brady on the football grid, or somebody like Michael Jordan playing basketball, because he clearly was the very best at what he did. And his great quote that stays stays with him and stays in my mind for 2023 is that everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. And what that how that really applies to your marketing plan is, you know, just the last week this is a perfect example, we saw how much beans have dropped. On Sunday night after the extra rain in Argentina started to fall, horn followed and then the volatility after that, because the rally that we saw after the January crop report, the three weeks ago tomorrow does faded pretty quickly in the face of the one thing we do see changing is this transition. The El Nino La Nina transition that should bring in historically has brought more more conducive weather around the world for global production. Next slide, please, Jeff. And this, all of these things we could spend the entire time on but I’m gonna break them down and talk deeply enough about each one where you can see where I’m standing on it. The ridiculous volatility that we’re seeing is with us to stay you will never see it go away anymore, because we just have too many interior and exterior in PACs from around the world, whether it’s the Russian Ukraine war, poor and our poor relationship with China, China’s relationship with Russia, what’s going on in Brazil and Argentina, the world banking situation with rising interest rates is there going to be a world recession, there’s so many things out there. And we haven’t really talked about weather too much to this point. But it’s just a situation where the volatility is going to be here. So however you set up your marketing plan, just know that you were going to see these, you know, big spike rallies, followed by sharp pull backs, and vice versa. And sometimes there’s news sometimes there isn’t news. And a lot of volatility now is being driven, because we have billions of dollars of outside investment money in our markets, whether it’s on the ground that we talked about earlier, or whether it is speculative money, who trades, the charts, and they’re just looking to diversify their portfolio with raw materials rather than Microsoft stocks and things like that. And with that, we’re just going to continue to see this volatility. They they report that mentioned briefly last three weeks ago was the USDA is look at what they’re considering the final 2022 numbers for the US crop. That crop, while the you the USDA will not adjust the corn yield that came in at 170 2.3. Or the acreage harvested for corn or beans, they will still play around with their supply and demand balance sheets as things change. And they can notice and go back even as far to make some corrections on mistakes that they’ve made. And those corrections may go all the way out to June, July or August before they make them but for what they said as far as yield and acreage, the 170 2.3 while still a top 10 National yield historically, it was right at five bushels below trendline expectations and right at you know 11% And the USDA are assuming not 11% But right at 111 and a half percent. The USDA considers anything lower than three den two bushels away from trend to be a low crop. And with this one being five bushels below, it certainly kind of falls into their definition of an underachieving crop. But the crazy thing about it is you can divide the corn yield in the Corn Belt this year in between Eastern Corn Belt and western corn belt with a line vertically through through to Moines and everybody west of Des Moines had really really tough conditions this year. A lot of huge production areas in eastern Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas, ended up getting 20 30% of their normal rainfall and with yield losses, in some cases pushing 60 70% of normal IPH. So while the western Corn Belt struggled, the eastern Corn Belt or everybody east of Des Moines did exceptionally well to pull that average up just to get the yield to a 170 2.3. And that’s a combination of things. It’s wonderful stewardship of the ground from every farmer who’s trying to coax all the bushels out of it that they can improve genetics in seed improved technology, soil mapping, all the GPS function and efficiency that you get from that technology bump and all of your equipment all across the board. It’s helping us get more out of that acre than 10 years ago, we probably thought we would be getting in 10 years. The 79 point 2 million acres harvested that was really the bullish hook and this because historically, the USDA uses 8% as their number from what we plant we planted just under 90 million acres. So I’ll call it 90,000,008 8% of 90 million would be 7.2. Right at 7 million. So that number historically would have been closer to 81 and a half to 82 million acres harvested but because of all the abandonment in the western Corn Belt, due to the in bad conditions, that number was a little bit higher and losing a million acres of harvested corn as much as much bigger impact on the bottom line. And on the on the supply side of things because that took off 172 million bushels. Whereas if you just adjust the yield a half a bushel, a you’re talking about, you know, 40 or 50 million bushels, so they that this year and it bears out because everyone across the country is seeing better basis historically, than you will see at this time of year, especially through harvest because you had such corn deficit in the western Corn Belt with all the feedlots and cattle industries out there. And people were paying up to get it shipped out of a more corn rich area of the eastern Corn Belt, the Bane number, the not great at 50.2 on the yield the harvested acres at 86.3. That number was not affected nearly as aggressively as corn planted about 88 million acres so only and this is pretty much standard for the USDA. USDA expects about one to one and a half million acres of beans not to be harvested. And they were pretty much right in line with that this year. But the 50.2 yield does show that crop ran into some headwinds, mainly from the western Corn Belt. Because the trendline to start the year last year was 52 bushels an acre the South American crops were also updated. And the USDA does their own guidance on expectations for Brazil and Argentina is corn and bean crops. While the governments and the private analyst in Brazil and Argentina do their own, there is still a good bit of separation between what we would consider a high USDA porn estimate for Argentina. And we’ll see how that bears out because Argentina has been stuck really for almost the past two and a half years and drought similar that we have had that we had last on the US in 2012. So we know that their corn yields down. Even though the rains have come a lot of it has is past the point of help, will stabilize. So we will see how that works moving forward. You look at Brazil’s corn crop. And one thing I want to show you is go back up to the US we produced a 13 point 7 billion bushel crop, Brazil and Argentina to produce just right at 7 billion bushels. So under normal circumstances, South America will produce about half of what the US normally does. So keep that in mind because that’s why the US the world needs us planting corn far more than they need us planting beans. And the main reason is highlighted by how many beans are grown in Brazil and Argentina, just in Brazil, at a 5.6 5 billion bushel bean crop. They outproduce the us about 1.4 About right at 30% larger and the US will never catch up to Brazil because Brazil has it seemingly an unending amount of available acres that they can bring into production whether they go into the highly productive areas by taking down the rainforest or adding new agricultural standards to some previously less than productive ground. They’ve got a lot more ground to expand on than the US or Argentina Argentina has pretty much capped out with where they are they may have a million or so that they could move around. But the real growth of acres and production is in that ball is in Brazil’s port right now. And on the Bane side, why the US number is right at 4.3 billion bushels when you add Argentina and Brazil together you now have a seven and a quarter billion bushel bean crop which is you know it’s what 60 70% higher than the US so we will always be behind them and bean production. The world’s still needs our veins but they need our core and a lot more. And the point I want to make to highlight how just where we are in the world production against South America. It is right now and heading into this break. You know, the rain that started in Argentina, whenever a US farmer gets an opportunity because of the weather rally on South American crops, whether it’s corn, wheat, cotton beans, whatever the case may be, it’s a wonderful opportunity to advance sales. Because the nice thing about South America’s weather is we know that it is not going to affect one bushel produced on your farm in the US, it’s a great time to take advantage of weather rallies or whatever may be happening down there. They have labor union port strikes and stevedore strikes all the time. So it’s it gives you an opportunity without having to be concerned that your yield may be hurt, because of a dry hot pattern in you know, Iowa and Illinois gets larger and starts to affect other states. So keep that in mind marketing, beans and corn during the winter is a very productive and a very safe time to do it simply because you have no yield at risk, at consequence, because of their weather. What the USDA did tell us that made the market rally out of the report was that the US and world ending stocks were a little bit smaller than expected, small enough, smaller enough to get a rally out of it and take prices. Corn in particular Oh, crop corn, up to about three months has very close to it. And beans back a good solid rally out of it. But they also said that they’re not high enough that we have the type of setup that we had in 21 and 22, where US production was absolutely critical to everything that was going to happen to be able to sustain prices. So we’ve got a wouldn’t call it an equilibrium, but we certainly have. We haven’t, it’s tight enough to be concerned about but there’s enough of it, that we can’t get overly bullish simply because stops are a little bit tight. I’ll skip over the break and go back to that the biggest thing that the number one factor that we are looking at moving forward into 23. And why I say this as a transitional year, and you’re going to have to be flexible with your marketing plan is you are finally starting to see this lawn mania pattern which historically means more inconsistent growing weather in both hemispheres. That is beginning to transition to the neutral El Nino. And the El Nino pattern pattern historically, not always but historically has been more conducive to higher world yields more consistent rainfall, more consistent temperatures. And what what you’re you’re used to seeing when you think about normal spring and summer weather. So and one of the things that may be that we have to keep in the back of our mind is the last three years crops 2021 and 22. All benefited from extremely long growing seasons that we went deep into September, you know whether people call it Indian summer, or just the natural pattern of La Nina to where we got an extended growing season that really added bushels, that historically, you kind of figure everything’s done by Labor Day, that the past couple of years have seen extended growing seasons into into the late summer and early fall that we made may be one of the things that we sacrifice for the rain in the summer. So I guess everybody would be happy to do it. But that typically is the trend. And if we get into a neutral El Nino, I’ll point back up to what our yields were at the top this year at 170 2.3 and 50.2. That when the USDA Economic Forum comes out with their numbers in February trendline yields this year going to be 178 and a half, and maybe 52 and a half, or 50 and a quarter or 52 and a quarter for veins. So what we know especially looking at the corn number is we are one good weather season growing season away in both of the entirety of the Corn Belt from 180 Plus bushel national yield. And we know it’s coming. It’s a matter of when not if and with all of the improved genetics. All we need is mother nature to cooperate and we’ll set a new national record and I expect that will happen within the next couple yours. The problem with national records, they’re great. And they show that every farmer is doing a wonderful job getting this yield. But farming historically, unfortunately, is a very cannibalistic business. Excuse me, you go into the year hoping for the very best yields you’ve ever seen. You participate in competitions, whether it’s a local with your retailer, whether it’s a county, whether it’s a statewide yield contest, and winning those things, is great. Everybody loves competition, and everybody loves to be good at what they do. But the problem with agriculture is the goal of agriculture is to produce as much as possible. But the goal of farming is to make money and sometimes producing the very absolute most that you can ends up having very detrimental effects to the market. So it for everybody who wants high yield and high prices, we’ll get will we always get one of those years, you know, once every decade and 22 certainly was one of those yields years to where the eastern Corn Belt had exceptional yield, and high prices. But the western Corn Belt didn’t. So very rarely do we see a whole corn belt where we have record deals and very profitable prices. So you know, it’s always situation, when you’re talking about yield and higher yield, you have to be careful what you wish for because as soon as you produce more of something, that there’s not enough demand to fill, the prices will fall to a level where there is demand. And that’s kind of in the situation, where we believe these markets are transitioning, because if South American production comes in as expected, and that would be a record Bane crop in Brazil to top it off. We will be looking at plenty of beans, China being able to buy cheaper Brazilian beans, and over the course of the spring and summer, rather than the the available supplies that we have. So it’s going to be a balance and something we’re really going to have to pay attention to. And that’s why I wouldn’t say that I am overly bearish. And because I’m cautiously optimistic about several things I’m gonna talk about, but looking at this transition year, the previous years we’ve seen higher yield. And right now we simply do not know with the interest rate hikes the fight against inflation, the looming apparent world recession and what Chan is going to do with their economic rebound from COVID. Now that they are taking steps to develop herd immunity, and reopen their country and their their enormous economy, that’s going to be really interesting to watch. Because if you have if you have more supply, but stagnant demand, prices will go down and there’s a good bit of downside especially in veins, you could easily paint a picture where November veins even after this 60 cent drop. If everything stays through the year in the US, it’s 52 bushel trendline yield. That’s summer, you could see beans, it easily back in the low $12 area instead of the 1330 to 1350 where we are today in the fourth, certainly not the $14 where we were over the past couple of weeks. They so get that in mind. One of the things that you know we already talked about Federal Reserve in the interest rates world recession hit on the Chinese COVID policy that they are now they did a complete about face a month ago to reopen their economy to stop the shelter at home orders every time they had, you know, a small, statistically insignificant number of COVID cases in a 2030 40 million person town to make them all go inside and shattered the economy. And with them on celebrating Lunar New Year this week, where they are in that is they believe the last report I said that 80 to 85% of the entire population of 1.8 billion people has either had COVID or been exposed to it. So if they are able with their increased vaccines and the herd immunity does kick in And China’s economy could potentially back back bounce back much faster than everyone thinks. And if that happens, then you get into the battle between the Federal Reserve and other World Bank’s trying to calm inflation, as China comes back in and for demand in the markets, as opposed to China wanting to come back in. So we still have a couple very formidable foes that could be fighting this out. If China gets back into the market, I think that China coming back in is obviously bullish. And we will see what happens with the Federal Reserve. The optimistic part of the Federal Reserve is if they meet next week and see numbers and continue to see weekly and monthly job claims and consumer price index numbers that allow them to stop raising the rates and they tap the brakes a little bit, then that also could be something that helps with demand. So there are a couple of things out there that are just unpredictable. Certainly the trends are not good now. But if they reversed even modestly, could very easily help to start to do some of these extra bushels that I’m talking about. One thing that is been a developing problem for the last 15 years, and will continue to be for decades to come is the growing alliance between Brazil, Russia, India and China. And you can see referred to these bricks, if you see it in an ag article, or if you see it in a financial article when they say brick like that, that stands for Brazil, Russia, India and China. And the reason why those countries are becoming more and more aligned, is because China needs Brazil’s production to feed their population. India needs Brazil’s production to feed their growing population, because now that the population is over 8 billion people, a third of those people. Gosh, 2.4, give or take two or 2.6 billion people live in India and China. And by in the next 15 to 20 years, they expect India to take over China is the most populated country in the world. And while India’s diets are certainly not as Western, and as meat based protein driven, as the Western diet, and where China is going with in between their hog hearts and their chickens and cattle and everything that they import from around the world, it is something that we need to pay attention to India is involved in this alliance, more by necessity than by choice, because they share a border with Russia and with Russia and China. And clearly you can’t, you know, be at odds with such large and powerful neighbors. So India is trying to be involved in in this BRIC Alliance, and India figures into this because they’re the only democracy, true democracy out of those three countries. And they are their true democracy elected president. And we are on good standing from a national policy support of their national policy, much more so than the US is with China or Russia. And obviously, we know that China and Russia would just wipe the US off the face of the earth and take over what was left. So when you’re talking about a growing Alliance, where a third of the world a third, more than a third of the world’s population, a demand base for your agricultural exports, and are all getting together, and you have very poor international relationships with them on the political side, it’s something that needs to be addressed. And that can only start in Washington, because they are going to we’re going to have to get getting a better position with China, because China at some point could use all of these billions that they’ve been investing in the infrastructure in Brazil and Argentina, they could get to a point where Brazil and Argentina not in corn, but certainly could get far enough advanced that China would need very little corn and beans from the US which obviously is a huge disruption. When you’re talking about you’re typically your best customer being able to go to someone else. So keep that in line. India does figure well from this standpoint, that we’re on good terms with them and If India can get some constellations and you know, improved relationships between China, Russia and the US, then we can get better moving forward so that we aren’t at the mercy of Brazil’s agriculture expanding, you know, even further year after year after year, but it time will tell, but it is something to keep in the back of your mind, because you’ll be hearing more about it as we move forward. Biggest thing, and this goes back to the interest rate that I’ve got two really good examples. What I want everybody to think about is are your bins, your friends in 2023. And if you look at the Chicago Board of Trade prices, for corn and beans, there is no carry in the market. And what that carry means is that they are not paying you say that, like the May corn contract is not a nickel higher than the March corn track contract, that would be the carry that they usually put in the market to give you an incentive to keep bushels on farm. But right now, it’s inverted to where basis is so good and front month futures are higher than back month that you really, they are trying to pull every bushel off farm and get it into the pipeline, because of the problems that the western Corn Belt faced this year. So with that, think about two different things. We talked about rising interest rates. And if you’re farming today, and anything of size, just call it starting at 2500 acres, it’s almost impossible to run that farm the way you need to run it without a million dollar line of credit. And that line of credit interest rate for simple figuring. Last year, the interest rate was roughly 3%. And this year, the interest rates 6% That 3% on that million dollars is another $30,000 of interest that’s coming right out of your pocket to pay back the interest. And you’re not gonna be able to hire you know, extra help buy new equipment, or lease or buy new ground, because that’s $30,000, you’re not going to be able to touch it’s gonna come right off the top. So the example I want to use is, if you have a been a 50,000 bushel bin that has, you know, corn, and you’re you could get $7 A bushel for that corn. And we’ve been able to get that, you know, depending on where you are, some people are above some people below, we’ll call it $7 for easy figuring, you could call the elevator and they would write you a $350,000 check. So that’s great, thank you very much appreciate it. Let’s say you go to the bank, and you have an exactly a $350,000 loan at 6% 6%. On $350,000 in interest is $21,000. We know that that interest cost is not going away. It’s it’s a fixed cost to you. And if you were to take that 350,000 and pay off that note, you would save yourself $21,000 Over the next year as opposed to that corn just sitting there and man is down even a little bit further than $21,000 on 50,000 bushels of grain is 40 cents. If you’re sitting there with bins full of grain, you are saying to the market, I made a 40 cent rally just to break even if you owe money. And when you look at it that way. That’s where and they’re years past couple years it’s paid handsomely to have storage and to keep bushels on farm this year right now it just doesn’t pencil out the interest expense. And the other side of it is opportunity cost because you can I got several emails today that I could get savings rates and even short term CDs at 4%. Let’s say you’re fortunate enough to operate an all cash operation, you have no debt. And if you do congratulations on that for great stewardship of your business through the years. But that $350,000 of corn sitting in the bank, you could easily take that 350,000 Put it in a CD or in a savings account and that 4% on $350,000 would be $14,000 that $14,000 On 50,000 bushels is About 20 A is exactly 28 cents a bushel. So one way or the other, if you are holding bushels on farm, and the example we’re using his corn, and the same math and the same ratios apply to beans or wheat, whatever you might have, you are telling the market are taking the chance that I have to have at least a 28 cent rally, and possibly a 40 cent rally just to break even for the luxury of holding this grain. So keep that in mind because it’s it’s just one of those years that your bans are going to be there for the convenience of at harvest, to keep you in the field and keep you moving. But they are not a long term investment of holding grain this year. Because with rising interest rates that that puts been storage space at a very expensive premium, even if it is on your own farm. So keep that in mind that that’s a lot to expect out of a market that certainly is struggling to develop any bullish trend at all. And if anything right now it’s in more of a neutral to bearish trend. Sa diesel has been all over the board lately. It has rallied from this 290 price that I mentioned in the example, the 290 price pretty tightly correlated with 72 $72 a barrel crude oil, and that 70 to $72. Barrel crude is important because the either the conversation or the memo got out that the Department of Energy and this current administration is going to bat back and refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in that 70 to $72 range when crude gets down there. When that got out, it immediately set a floor in the price. And we’ve not traded below $70 in quite a while since that was found out in the market. And where we sit now, because China said that when they do get reopened, they’re intending to import more crude and more basil and 23 and 24 than they did at pre COVID lead levels. So this is not you know, this is an absolute apples to apples comparison that you’re talking about strong demand before COVID. And they want even more of it, once they get the herd immunity in the economy reopen. So if you get a break on and what I’m talking about is on the March futures and be whatever the the front futures month is that’s not in delivery. Go in and talk to your supplier top off your tanks, because we know that OPEC would prefer the price to be 95 to $100 a barrel. And if for whatever reason, we do not have a world recession, China comes out of their recession and COVID quicker and the rate hikes stop, there will be a very optimistic outlook start to develop and where we’re trading at 280 $3 a barrel and $3.30 to $3.40 a gallon on diesel. We know how quickly diesel can get to $4 on futures and how quickly it can get you know well over $5 at the pump so keep that in mind there are some opportunities. Natural gas is another energy one because the UN I’d say warm but it’s you can’t call anywhere warm unseasonably not as cold as expected in Europe in the US to this point other than the Christmas cold snap. Natural gas prices plummeted because the US it was almost at seven and now it’s at three so it’s gone down over 50% And for those of you that dry your corn, whatever you do with your propane and natural gas, you do have some opportunities because the price down here is really low. I’m not as optimistic that it’s going to rally sharply out of here. But it is something that from a historical perspective if you use a lot of natural gas to dry your corn and your bushels your means that it might be a good time to look at hedging some of that because the price is certainly falling off board as I sit here I’m going to take the Better safe than sorry cautious approach and my general outlook is that I am more bearish beans but slightly bearish corn. Going back to the if we transition into neutral El Nino and we move into more production and have more world supply prices are gonna go down basic economic theory. Whereas with wheat, I’m more neutral bullish, because I still believe that as but when this war keeps grinding on in Ukraine, he looks at what happened to us and Germany are sending more tanks to the Ukraine for their defense, scheming that at some point, Putin is going to do something to disrupt what is has now, what’s now going on a very smooth flow out of the Black Sea port that you manage what the humanitarian export corridor, and if he backs out of that and shuts that down and takes the offensive to the to several of those ports, then you have something that we’re it’s hard to believe, a year, you know, we’re 11 months from the invasion, we saw wheat go from $7 to $15. And now we’re back, you know, under $7. And wheat is now 60 to 70 cents cheaper, while the war is still going on, than it was when the war started. So some of it’s hard to figure out, but predicting the unpredictable is always one of the fun things when you’re talking about a marketing plan. And certainly, you’ve got to think that there is going to be a disruption that Russia is going to get tired of toying around with letting Ukraine export their weight to bring in money to finance a war against Russia, and Russia could control the whole thing. So it’s, sometimes it’s a horrible thing that’s happening, but you have to look at it on how can affect price. And if we were to get a, you know, a quick dollar bounce out of that, something like that, then you would certainly see corn be pulled with it. And that and what were believe what we believe we’re going to see is continued like that, that goes back to the volatility. But you’re going to have spikes, Spike rallies, that only give you a very brief amount of time to price bushels. Unlike the long extended rallies that we had in, you know, 21 and 22, where you just kind of got on board and kept selling a little all the way up and felt comfortable doing it, you’re going to have to be prepared, you’re going to have to move quickly, you’re going to have to have sale orders above the market in with your buyers, whether it’s an elevator, a feedlot, a processor, whoever that is, because everything happens in Russia happens while we’re asleep. And unless you unless your elevator has a 24 hour call. And you’re going to watch the markets for that one spike and wait that drags corn up 25 or 30, you’re probably going to miss the opportunity. And I’ll give you the example right before Christmas. When one of the defense missiles landed in Poland, we went from 15 lower to lock limit up basically a 55 cent move in the course of about 15 or 20 minutes. But then when I found out that it was a Russian Ukrainian defense rocket, and not a Russian rocket in Poland, in a native country, wait immediately gave back every bit of it by the end of the next day. So you’re gonna have to be able to learn how to market the spikes, because that’s what we’re going to see in 2023. We’re not going to see, oh, I’ll wait a couple of days, see if it gets better. Because if you look back at price charts on these rallies over the, you know, since June, May, June, since we topped out the rallies had been harder to find and quicker to disappear. So that’s my advice. have sales targets above the market with your buyers so that you don’t have to get really lucky and be at the right place at the right time. With a phone in your hand to call your buyers. Jeff That’s about it. I will do the last photo was the last slide. In the newsletter that I publish. This is what I put on the second page that newsletter I publish goes out to over 7000 recipients in 33 states and a couple of different countries last time we checked and what we try to do is I will read 35 to 40 pages of information every day from all sorts of sources across the world. scuze me some of the sources you’re familiar with some of them you’ve never heard of, but what I’ve tried to do is get a really good idea and a broad picture, boil that down into the newsletter into a five to seven minute read to give you an actionable plan. It’s an education tool, we’re in the education business, we are not in the prognostication business or trying to, you know, pick absolutes on what the market is going to do. But if we educate everybody and educate ourselves, about the general trends, we certainly can do better. And I’ll always have standing sales targets, happy, always happy to put out my track record. Because what I know in the marketing game, I can look back and go, gosh, you know, that year wasn’t very good, or that was kind of a dumb move, or I can look back and go, Wow, that was really, really smart to sell, you know, to sell that even though I was it didn’t seem like it at the time. Because I know that everybody that markets, every farmer that has ever marketed his own grain goes through those same same emotions, and we’re very happy with our track record, I’ll put it up against anybody’s. And what I tried to do was have, like, you can see on the 22 crop we sold a little bit more today. Because like I said, I’m in the Better safe than sorry, a trend rather than the, you know, hopeful of a rally, and try to always look out and have the window of a couple, three years, because farming is, you know, a long term business where, you know, you’ve got 23, crops to plant probably still have a little 22 crop to sell. And even looking out when we make this transition and a couple months to bring our ideas about where 2024 Prices are, they’ll always be something in there to give you a little guidance about, you know, what we’re thinking. And what I’m worried about with old crop corn. And while I’m close to being finished, is the basis is going to start to fade basis has been so strong, that you got some you got some of the best prices of the entire marketing year. Well after harvest, better prices than you could have gotten in May in June, when the futures price was actually higher, simply because of the demand and shortage in a lot of areas. So but I have no problem trying to find a spot for a spike to be out of all of my old crop, simply back to the example I used that that money can be better used to pay off debt to stop that interest, or to invest it in a short term CD, right? And take it out of harm’s way from if these markets continue to go lower on improved weather in South America. And then on 23. Got started that 608. We lowered that. And we did sell a little bit today. I’m sorry, we had to put this slide deck together. And I’ve changed it since then. But if if you sold some December corn above, above YouTube’s at 590 or any rally up towards six, I think you’re really starting off the year in a good spot, I would have loved to have started at 625. But the drought in Argentina kind of scared me away from that, unfortunately. So that’s our outlook. That’s what we do. And I’m happy to be associated with Old National Bank and to be able to be here today. And Jeff, have you seen any questions pop up that we can answer?

 

Jeff Eizenberg  1:08:45

Yes. No. Thank you, Jody, thanks for that outlook. And one question kind of came in. And it’s also kind of Top of Mind with what you’re speaking about here is, you know, in general, two things. One is short term old crop prices, you know, we’ve got a gentleman, so he’s looking to know if we can see soybeans back up above 1502. On the on the front side of the curve. He says he stores them and is thinking about, you know, marketing and more in May or into June. I think the equation is straight there for you. You’ve said you’ve got interest rate costs that are out there that could you know, I just did quick back of the napkin, you know, 10 Maybe 15 cents in interest costs if you’re borrowing money between now and June plus storage costs, plus the fact that we’re starting to hide bases in most areas, particularly he’s mentioned he’s in North Dakota. So you know, there seems to be more risk in holding on then the going ahead and contracting but welcome your feedback, additional feedback.

 

Jody Lawrence  1:09:52

Yeah, that question is directly why I made the point about all the bins your friends because I think we’re just going into a period especially in to prepay when you can take advantage of some discounts and do some other things, right writing checks whether that you can definitely, you’re better off with cash in the bank and paying off whatever loans that you have. Because even if you just put it in a to 3% interest, it’s like you said, instead of begging the market to prove you, right, and rally so that you can sell it just to break even, it doesn’t make any sense to ever adopt that as a marketing plan. Because hoping the market bails you out, it leads to more heartache than it does to good times.

 

Rebecca King  1:10:42

Can I just add in something really quickly, that if you’re an old national customer, please talk to your old national banker. We do have some money market and some CD rates that I think would be attractive to you if you end up with that additional cash.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  1:11:01

Yeah, and that’s, that’s it, because you have to really write no, you have to search for those online rates. And then you go through the process of opening banks bank, new bank accounts, it’s much easier just to go to the bank. And potentially, like I said, I was hosting a podcast couple weeks ago. And I said, What CD what is that? You know, I have an old stack boom in my garage. But the reality is, it’s probably a good, good opportunity.

 

Rebecca King  1:11:27

Yeah, definitely a good opportunity right now.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  1:11:31

So get that. That’s one. And since we’re stuck with you, Rebecca, there was a question related to interest rate costs, and, you know, the function of is there a way to hedge interest rates? You know, maybe we’ve already gone through most of the cycle, but there still seems to be some upside. What are your thoughts on hedging? And how do we how do we engage that? So

 

Rebecca King  1:11:55

let me break this into two sections. If you really want to go out there into the marketplace and hedge your interest rates, you’re going to need to talk to a broker, it’s not something you can do through a bank. But if you have floating rate debt, and you want to hedge that by purchasing an interest rate swap and converting that to a fixed rate, that’s an all in rate for you, we can definitely talk to you about that. And happy to introduce you to our Capital Markets team, our, our lenders have familiarity with this, but they are the experts. So we would, you know, stay there with you every step of the way, and make sure you understood what your options were. So if it’s a bank or a loan related product, please speak to one of our relationship managers. But if you’re looking at hedging in the marketplace, that is going to be I’m gonna leave that in Jeff’s hands.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  1:12:45

Yeah, and I think just a comment related to the hedging and interest rates or fuel costs, which is another question that came in is, the first question is, how much are you trying to hedge? You know, are you dealing with a quarter million dollar note or amount of interest that needs to be financed or 10 million? And with most strategies, and same thing with fuel? You know, are you talking about 10,000 gallons or 100,000 gallons that needs to be hedged? And I think Jody would agree with me that you know, our philosophy is really never to go all in, you know, you’re really everything is incremental, you saw Jodi’s recommendations on his on the grain marketing, slow and steady wins the race, take advantage of opportunities, have a plan, trade your plan. And the same thing would apply to interest rates in energy you you know, if you have a massive amount of debt that’s coming due and want to protect that we can help if you using you know significant amount of energy over the summer versus your neighbor who’s smaller. And, you know, your your fuel broker in town is trying to sell you on just, you know, waiting it out. Listen, you’re in charge of your business. And we can help we can put some hedges in place to help you protect some of that risk. But Joe, did you have any more comments on that?

 

Jody Lawrence  1:14:12

Now, you know, that’s that just wipe it the same thing with buying what you need. You just inverse the way you hedge grain you love to sell rallies, when you’re selling your corn and beans and you loved about dips when you’re hedging your fuel. It’s you know, you just have to think in one big picture, that there’s always an opportunity when prices were low during COVID. You know, everybody kicked themselves for not buying, you know, $15 crude oil. And because we’ve already, you know, gotten over $100 Since then you could have been hedged for the next 10 years of use on farm with a couple of things like that, and there’s in so much stuff happened during COVID I certainly I hope we don’t get another pandemic. But it seems like we’re getting more and more of what we would call Oh, that’s a once in a lifetime event that’s a Black Swan. And they come so often anymore, that we’re getting great pricing opportunities on the sales side, and also some good purchase hedge opportunities on the low end, when things do break that way, and 2023 may be a year where we get both, because we’re, you know, as the world economy settles out, whatever may happen.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  1:15:33

Yep. Now, that’s a very fair assessment. But, you know, you know, overall, I think recap from today is that, you know, a lot of market risk out there. Last question that actually I came up with those. Make sure I’m doing the math right, your God, we’re saying soybean breakevens, around eight 100. Or sorry, yeah. breakevens. On 800. If you’re telling us yields might be 52. That means we need 1538. Price soybeans to break even, am I

 

Jody Lawrence  1:16:03

yeah, that’s where that 800 might be a little hard. Everybody should know now or be real close to what it is. But certainly where the cost where the price of beans is now that we’ve broken, you have substantially this week, even if you got a flat 1350 for it and your yield was 60, you’re still you’re still only $810 on you know what may be, you know, a full fertility program for that acre of beans. So in the margins on vein certainly have shrunk this week, to a point they’re not as attractive as corn. And with corn. You can you know, get fat at 590. Let’s take bait normal basis all 550 200 There’s your 1100. And if it’s costing you 1000, you’re making money, but it’s certainly not the three $400 An acre that we made in 21 and 22.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  1:16:59

Perfect. Yeah, thank you for that, because I just need to check myself for a second. But nope, this is this has been super helpful. And great. Rebecca, did you have any last thoughts or questions for Jodi or the group?

 

Rebecca King  1:17:12

Well, we just really appreciate the partnership with our CN. And Jodi’s expert guidance that he provides to us. In terms of questions, not really for today, but please feel free. I know you just put my phone numbers in the chat. I don’t know. Yep, there you go. Thank you. Yep, my numbers there. So please reach out to me. If you have any specific questions on the banking side, I can connect you with a relationship manager or I might be able to answer your questions directly. Keep in mind, you know, to make sure that you’re looking out for opportunities to learn more about marketing, such as this webinar. And please reach out to Jeff or Jodi, if you’d like to work with them or talk to them in, you know, in future.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  1:17:58

Absolutely. No, thanks, Rebecca, for setting this up. And including your group. It’s been great working with you and the team. And obviously, we had some nice live events in the last few weeks. So that’s been fun. I look forward to continuing those. And God we gotta wish you well wishes here in the snow and the, you know, the treacherous winter that you have, how many more meetings do you have this year?

 

Jody Lawrence  1:18:21

Oh, gosh, we’re booked all the way up to the end of March and my biggest concern because they start to get a little bit warmer, I will be a commodity classic. My biggest customer is Helen agri business and I’ll be hanging around there but it’s a commodity classic. So that’s an Orlando I get to go to Phoenix for another customer event. But next week we’ll be all over Central and Northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin and we’re looking at a bunch of single digit nighttime lows and you don’t live in Nashville for single digit nighttime loves. So if I can get by the by the end of next week without frostbite, I should be okay.

 

Rebecca King  1:19:02

That’s gonna be all right. On how to dress just let us know. Layers.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  1:19:09

Yes, if anybody would like to reach out to find out where God is gonna be if you can get out and see him, just send us a message or send me a message and I can get you his schedule. But other than that, I appreciate everybody taking the time. We look forward to doing this again with Old National here and God and keep people updated with what’s going on. So again, I was I’m Jeff Eisenberg. We had Jody Lawrence and Rebecca King. Thanks again to everyone have a great rest of your day.

 

Rebecca King  1:19:37

Thanks so much.

 

This transcript was compiled automatically via Otter.AI and as such may include typos and errors the artificial intelligence did not pick up correctly.

05 Jan 2023

Stock market outlook and Tax savings strategies for 2023 with Tim Webb

With every new year, there are new opportunities, and there’s no better time to dive deeply into the stock market and tax-saving strategies for 2023 than now. In our latest episode of the Hedged Edge, we’re joined by Tim Webb, Chief Investment Officer and Managing Partner from our sister company, RCM Wealth Advisors. Tim is no stranger to advising institutions and agribusinesses where he has been implementing no-nonsense financial planning strategies and market investment disciplines to help Clients build and maintain wealth and reach financial goals since

Inside this jam-packed session, we’re taking a break from commodities, and talking about the world of equities, interest rates, tax savings, and business planning strategies. Plus, Jeff and Tim delve into a variety of topics like:

  • The current state of the markets within the wealth management industry
  • Is there a beacon of hope, or is it all doom and gloom for the markets?
  • Other strategies to think about outside of the stock market and so much more!

 

Contact Tim Webb twebb@rcmfs.com

Visit rcmwa.com for more information and be sure to follow them on Twitter and check them out on LinkedIn

 

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Check out the complete Transcript from this week’s podcast below:

Stock market outlook and Tax savings strategies for 2023 with Tim Webb

 

Jeff Eizenberg  00:14

Welcome to the hedge edge by RCM AG services where we’re getting out of the field and onto the mic to bring you weekly market updates, commentary from commodity experts in monthly interviews with the biggest names in agribusiness. Welcome to the hedge edge and the first episode of 2023. As always, I’m your host Jeff Eisenberg. Today we’ll be taking a break from commodities and diving into the world of equities, interest rates, as well as tax savings and business planning strategies for the new year. Our guest today is Tim Webb. Tim is a close friend of our sister company, RCM Wealth Advisors, where he’s the Chief Investment Officer and managing partner. Tim has been working as a portfolio manager and advisor to families institutions, and agri businesses, implementing no nonsense financial planning strategies, and market investment disciplines to help clients build and maintain wealth and reach financial goals since 2003. Tim, welcome to the show.

 

Tim Webb  01:25

Thanks, Jeff, for having me. Appreciate it.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  01:29

Absolutely. Hey, last time we saw each other I think it was on the golf course. And correct me if I’m wrong, but pretty sure I was standing on a green that you drove Absolutely. Over the green went over.

 

Tim Webb  01:40

Yeah, I want to be clear on that it. It carried the green.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  01:47

Oh, is that possible? So you you grew up playing baseball. I mean, some people say golf and baseball don’t mix. But from what I see, it’s a perfect match.

 

Tim Webb  01:57

Well, you know, I, I’ve always been somewhat of a big hitter, I back and forth pretty much my entire career. And initially, it did not mix, I was having the banana slices all the way into the woods and all that other stuff. And if we’re talking advice here, I’m going to give two quick driving tips, I guess the first one would be try to transfer a little bit of weight to your front foot that helped me out a ton. And then really just kind of driving down into the ball and through it. And if you’re looking for power, the one thing that I’ve realized is that I do swing hard, that’s that’s neither here nor there. But where I generate my most power is because you’re in a small confined area, is you actually have to push down into the ground and up you have to figure out how to generate a lot of power from a very short period short area, right. So you can kind of drive my feet into the ground and then come up at the at the point of impact there. So Wow.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  02:55

So you’re not not only you know, offering financial advice, you’re also operating Golf Tips. Which one did people take you up on more frequently? I guess is the question.

 

Tim Webb  03:05

Well, the only benefit in golf I can do is with my drive. My short game is horrendous. So but ya know, it’s I enjoy it. I joined the league and over the past three years, so I’ve improved markedly my golf a little bit. So I get out maybe, I think maybe, you know, I try to get in 18 holes a week if I can. Yeah, so it’s nothing nothing great. I’m I’m I’m a mid 80s shooter. So don’t other than the dry. That’s all I can impart on this conversation. Okay, well,

 

Jeff Eizenberg  03:39

I’ll put you on my scrambled team for sure. Next, next time we play, but I do well, I do. Well, it scrambles. Yeah, on percent. Great. Well, yeah. So excited to have you here today. You know, we’ve been obviously working together in parallel for a long time now. And, you know, the markets. We’re going to talk about a little bit about the markets. And you know, before we jump into that, I think it might be helpful, just for anyone listening in just to give a little bit of your background. I mean, you you started our CM malt advisors over 10 years ago with with Bobby shorts, and you know, the CEO of RCM alternatives and in ag services. What What can you tell us about this journey? I mean, 10 years ago, you know, all we had to do is stick your money in the markets and we’re looking pretty good. 10 years later, but it’s different world now.

 

Tim Webb  04:28

Yeah. Well, especially in the in the overall wealth management space as a whole. So I started my career back in 2003. Started with a great regional firm, ag Edwards, and after about four years, four or five years in there, I remember going down to a meeting at their St. Louis campus with the CEO. And I won’t mention names with that but the CEO was asked and it was it was like around 2007 I guess right around there. was closed for Friends with the Gallatin family who had started ag Edwards. And I remember the question was, Hey, would you ever sell this firm? And he’s, you know, quote unquote, Over my dead body? Would I ever sell this firm? 11 days later he sold the firm. Right? So. So from there, you know, it went to, I think it was y cobia. At the time. I can’t remember offhand. I didn’t necessarily want to stay with with that firm. So I ended up transferring over to Smith Barney at the time, then you hit kind of the the 2008 financial crisis. Citibank broke the buck. Smith, Barney was kind of their crown jewel of, you know, assets for the bank at that point. It was, it was at that point, it seemed as if we were gonna be buying some other groups. I remember calling some of my friends on the street, like, oh, they were calling me. I said, I hear we’re buying you there. I got we here we’re buying you like okay. Eventually they, Morgan Stanley and Smith, Barney decided on a joint venture, which eventually turned into Morgan Stanley, long term, they were offering up some deals, I didn’t necessarily want to take any kind of deal from them. So at that point, in 2009, I opened up in independent office, went to the RIA model, right, so there was, you know, broker johrei, but it was through a local outfit. And that local outfit was eventually swallowed up by Charles Schwab. So that

 

Jeff Eizenberg  06:34

was an interesting time, because the RA model is so different than the traditional stock brokerage model, right? You’re really taking an entire look at someone’s financial plan, as opposed to what stock Can I pick? That’s going to me the next Tech tech, tech stock or something along those?

 

Tim Webb  06:51

Yeah, it totally true. And the biggest thing with that is, is really kind of becoming a fiduciary, right? So once you go to the gray model, it’s so much different than it was back when I started in 2003. When you go into the RA model, you’re sitting on the you’re sitting as a fiduciary to your clients, and you’re sitting on the same side of the table, right? You’re not making any Commission’s off of their business, you’re charging a fee for service and advice, adding value and and not necessarily pushing any product to any one person and or client, right. So the idea is what is best for that individual, that corporation, that that non for profit, that is going to help them and all those people that might be within that organization, and you push forward from that standpoint now, from an overall business, I couldn’t make that any better. Right? So, you know, there’s from the situation of having to say, Okay, well, what is best? How do we get a go the best? How do we go about getting our clients to that end goal. And that’s where the IRA model, in my opinion, the registered investment advisor model is best suited for the lion’s share of clients, and you’re starting to see even the big banks and all that stuff, trying to push their business more towards that arena.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  08:01

Yeah, listen, everybody is an expert at their business right at this stage in the game. And we want to let them stay experts at what they do and bring you in to piece together the the financial elements of it makes sense. And then also your global network, additional service providers or partnerships, allow for you to then also kind of be at the helm of some of these organizations, whether it’s a, you know, a farm, in an elevator, you know, somebody that’s touching in traditional agricultural businesses, or, you know, obviously, not inside our markets, but other types of companies and businesses that you work with elsewhere.

 

Tim Webb  08:42

It’s great point, one of the one of the main things to and where you can continue to drive value for your clients is trying to figure out ways that you can help their business in every aspect, right? So be it bringing specialty Farm Insurance to two different groups, bringing estate planning wills, getting, you know, essentially negotiating on behalf of your clients with these groups, going to different different outfits that may do those services and bringing some volume to them, so that you can bring the volume discounts back to your clientele, and say, Okay, well, here’s, here’s how, here’s what we’ve negotiated. This is, you know, these are the experts in these fields, and they’re gonna bring this to you, and it’s most likely going to be less costly than you would going out on your own right. So that that’s kind of the big thing and kind of bringing that full full suite of services to whatever client base we’re chatting with organization or otherwise, right.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  09:42

All right, well, we’ve got the elevator pitch down now. So let’s flip over to the important stuff. What is not that that doesn’t count, but people want to know and I do too. Where are we going with stocks, the stock market, and interest rates coming up here in the new year? Here we’re, you know, obviously market end of the year down terribly, almost as bad as 2008. And then you reference the 2003 period when you started. That was another terrible period. But you know, I guess the first question is, is there a beacon of hope? Or is it all doom and gloom here? What are you and your team looking at right now?

 

Tim Webb  10:21

Yeah. So you know, obviously, you know, the big in maybe you’ll have questions about this later. But the big thing that are on a lot of our client’s mind is, okay, is there a recession coming? Or I believe we already are in it. Some, some, some don’t.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  10:36

And I’ll tell you, my Costco bill, telling you we were going to be in recession, I can’t believe the prices, I’m going to hit the brakes and sending my wife to the store.

 

Tim Webb  10:44

Yeah, yeah. Inflation. That’s obviously another big situation. And, we try to inform on that as well. But yeah, with respect to is there a recession kind of looming hovering over us? The answer, in our opinion, is yes. Right. So we’re kind of projecting it out probably for the second half of 23, which is where it looks most likely. Everybody who’s been in the markets understands that this past year, was it didn’t matter what you’re in, you could have been in stocks, bonds, Bitcoin, silver, gold, you know, it seemed like everything was, you know, really tracking backward. And in a lot of ways, in a typical recession, some of those things might have worked, you know, even in the corporate bond space, or those high grade corporates or, you know, mortgage-backed should have done a little bit better than they did. So everything kind of really took it on the chin, some of the numbers, you have

 

Jeff Eizenberg  11:33

to take a pause there and make a plug for the alternative side here, you know, following CTAs, fad had a great year, you know, double digits. So let’s not forget about where there can be potential is commodity since we’re on a commodity podcast. Remember, there was there were some positive numbers out there.

 

Tim Webb  11:55

No doubt. I’ve been seeing those numbers from you guys. And they are quite impressive. I would I would definitely agree with that. Yeah, so there, I mean, yes, there’s, as you know, there’s always someplace where you can kind of look, it was just more difficult and 22. Right. There was in, you know, to put it put it lightly, I guess, to really look back, you know, because they started raising interest rates so aggressively and above expectation, wait way beyond what they were predicting, right. Like at the beginning of 22? I believe they were kind of coming out saying, Yeah, we’re going to probably do employment looks good. We’re probably going to have 325 basis point rate hikes throughout the year of 22. Well,

 

Jeff Eizenberg  12:36

exactly. It just complete change, of course.

 

Tim Webb  12:39

Yeah, they did that in one month, right. So we’ve just seen this happen fast and furious. And the other big thing that we look at, and you know, what, everyone’s there’s a lot of froth still left in the markets, right. So, you know, from a standpoint of empty money supply, right. So they’ve, there has just been because of the pandemic and everything else like that there has been a flood of money that’s been put out there, be it through different government programs, things like that different bills that have passed, but there’s been a lot of money, and that has kind of pushed through the system and still has a way of working, it has some more time that it has to work its way through the system if you will. So now, you know, moving into 23, you can see the Federal Reserve kind of saying, Okay, well, we’re, we’re looking at some of these things we’re at we did just did a 50 basis point hike, some are projecting another 75 basis points. And one thing that we’re seeing a lot of is that, you know, if 22 is any indication, I don’t necessarily think the best place to look is what the Federal Reserve is kind of touting right now. Right? Of course, and

 

Jeff Eizenberg  13:49

dead wrong. I mean, why should we believe right?

 

Tim Webb  13:52

I agree. And the worst part of it all is, is the markets are trading based off of their, what they’re saying and all that other stuff. It’s not based off of fundamentals. It’s not based off of even, you know, tracking, it’s all based on what is the Federal Reserve going to do? What are they going to say? What are they going to project out? And that’s no, that’s, that’s not a good place to be overall. And I do think in 23, that’s that that narrative starts to change a little bit, right. So eventually, the markets do tend to always go back to okay, what’s the valuation that I’m at right now? Right, where, where is where can I find future growth and, and future prospects for different companies? And once we start getting back to the fundamentals, which we do believe will happen in 23, be it in the bond markets, be it in the stock markets? We do think we get back to some normalities where we’re going off of what you know, earnings because obviously, you’re going to have compression in earnings. You know, there’s going to that’s going to trickle through. That’s probably what’s going to trigger the recession that we think is forthcoming. On top of it, you’re gonna probably see that the Federal Reserve is going to kind of keep their Put on the gas a little bit. So you get closer to more of a 5% unemployment rate, versus staying at the three-and-a-half word that it’s technically quoted at right now. Right. So, you know, so there’s gonna be some of that coming off the system, which, you know, with respect to stocks, that we don’t necessarily think that’s the best growth environment. So for some of those cloud computing companies, some of those, you know, even even some of the big aggregate tech companies, they’re facing headwinds throughout that. So, you know, our goal is kind of looking at, okay, what dividend paying stocks value based stocks are we looking at, we know, there’s going to be some volatility that comes through here, you can utilize some option work with that utilizing covered calls. And we have something we call our triple income strategy where we’re doing different things to kind of generate synthetic Nan, we want to call it synthetically generate options, premiums to kind of get some of these, these dividend paying stocks at a better price, do a covered call or call spread on it on the back, and really kind of mitigate some of that volatility that, you know, we saw throughout 22. So we think that that strategy in 23 looks to be a little bit stronger than saying, okay, everything is dip back so bad in the tech space and the growth companies that it’s gotta be a good time to buy it.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  16:21

Is really, what if I could summarize what you’re saying there, at the end of the day, hope is not a strategy, right? And you you really have a view of where where things need to go? Or are potentially going and then being tactful in how to allocate? You know, really kind of falls on your shoulders a bit, I guess, you know, a question that comes to mind is, historically, people have been successful with passive investments, versus the active type of investment strategies. And I know, you and your company that you’ve mentioned, your, your strategy, you know, have had quite a bit of success on the on the being the tactful, or, you know, active side. Maybe just talk a little bit about that. Not too not too detailed. I mean, you’re talking to commodity traders. So, you know, we understand, you know, covered calls and options, strategies, but just high level what, what are some of the more active approach? You take?

 

Tim Webb  17:22

Yeah, yeah. And speak briefly on the past stuff. Yes, over the past 10 years, with easy money. It was kind of a point and shoot situation, right? You know, it was, if there’s 500 targets out there, and you hit a few of them yet, it’s gonna it’s gonna be fine, right like that. That’s that that’s what was good under easy monetary policy, obviously, it’s gotten a lot more difficult. Now that the volatility is ticked up. And also, that has come to kind of a screeching halt from an empty money supply aspect, right. So that, that in 22, right around October is pretty much gone, too. It’s still a little bit going on, but it’s pretty, pretty slow down substantially, right. So with respect to that, you know, the way the way that we look at it for 23 going going forward, you take a passive index, you know, let’s just say the s&p 500, a lot of times people say, You know what, I’m gonna put that in there. Okay, so just based off of what I said before, that’s a market cap weighted average, right? So that the biggest companies in the world are going to have the most amount of exposure in that s&p 500 font. Right? Right. So you’re gonna own all the apples, the Google’s the Facebook’s meta, if you will, all of those, that’s going to be comprised of about 35% of your portfolio between 30 and 35% of your portfolio based on market cap weight. And, you know, you’re technically moving more towards kind of a technology based portfolio with respect to that. And in our opinion, in this upcoming year, the value base is going to be more the healthcare sector, you know, a little bit maybe, you know, financials have been hurt a little bit, but, you know, those potentially could do okay, being that we’re in a, you know, somewhat of a an abundance type of atmosphere with the Federal Reserve type of thing. So the one the one strategy that we employ is obviously, we want reoccurring dividends that have consistently increased over time that we think that are going to continue to, you know, they’re not going to get hurt too bad throughout any kind of recession, because they’re kind of their built in businesses. They’re the steady growers, if you can get four to 6% in market return, and you got a two to 4% dividend, you’re looking at a six to 8% Return overall. And sometimes you just got to take what’s given to you in that particular time. Right, you know, question

 

Jeff Eizenberg  19:36

Question comes to mind right there. So with cash rates as high as they are now three to 5% it was cash-rich companies are the ones that you’re thinking about because ultimately they’re going to earn interest on money it’s an excess cash plus potentially thrown off profit from the from the best business actual revenues. Is that something that you’re thinking about?

 

Tim Webb  19:57

Absolutely. Cash is king right? You know, that’s, that’s Always the, you know, we do what’s called discounted cash flow analysis or discounted cash flow, you know, kind of reporting on companies. So we’re always looking okay, what’s the cash look like? What’s their ability to continue to pay those dividends? What’s their growth model? Because, you know, be it with inflation still at high levels, right? There are certain capital expenditures that different companies were paying for in the past, right. wage growth was kind of moving pretty, you know, up pretty quickly, because, you know, you had easy monetary policy, and that kind of trickled down through all the, through all the ranks or so yeah, definitely cash is going to be king our opinion 2023 typically always is. But you know, those high valuation stocks, while they may be cash rich, they’re still trading in multiples that are well beyond what we think that, you know, could continue in 23. There. So it’s just more of a conservative approach, right, just just for to start off the year. It’s not that we can’t pivot it, you know, because at some point, I don’t want to be all doom and gloom on this. I do think, at some point, there’s going to be a great buying opportunity, both in bonds, because those have retracted so much. And even in those growth stocks. I mean, I just I think the market is waiting, somewhat for an all clear sign. But I want to put that in perspective as well. Right. So we’ve just gone through 12 months of the market, you know, starting in January, the market just started tanking and 22 going down, going down. I’ve had a couple of pockets. We had about nine or 10 situations where the market tried to rally and failed throughout 2022. We do think that tends to continue into 23. A little bit. And but with that said, if we do go into recession, markets will be trying to get out don’t they’ll be the first things to recover, right? So typically, recessions lasts anywhere from two to 18 months as a whole. Right? That includes 2008 and blues back for the past 50 years. So, you know, we’re 12 months into kind of a retracement in, in equities. And we do think that, you know, I don’t think we’re gonna hit the long end of that 18 months, but I think for the first couple of quarters, I think it makes sense to play it safe. dividend payers, things like that. The other thing is I have not this is something that we’ve been doing, we’ve been kind of doing a laddered CD strategy. I haven’t bought CDs for DVDs.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  22:21

I mean, are you talking about the ones that we listened to on our old disk man? Or what does it say?

 

Tim Webb  22:29

Well, it just, you know, the appetite for risk right now is very, very low is what I would say with the base that we deal with, right? So that’s also if you look at it from the contrarian standpoint, too, that’s also an opportunity like you, you may want when things get it’s that old Warren Buffett, you know, saying is, you know, be greedy when others others are fearful, we’re starting to hit some peak fearful levels right now, which, from our standpoint, we look at that as an indicator of good times ahead a little bit, right. So when we come out of these, these types of recessions, you have the largest you have, you can look back, and you’re going to be looking at 45 to 50% returns, potentially out of these recessions and and not too short time after that. And stocks will typically run six to 12 months ahead of that recession actually being over, right. So I don’t want to get too fine with with the strategy saying, Okay, you got to do this. And you got to wait until you get an all clear sign. That might not be the case, right. So it’s a situation of we know where we’re at, we’re about 12 months into this retracement, we know potentially could last 18 months but went a little bit longer. Okay. Historically, now we’re passing some levels, we had a pandemic, that was pretty large and had a quite a bit of an effect. We’ve had easy monetary policy that they’re pulling back. Oh, and by the way, we got $32 trillion in debt at the government level.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  23:51

Let’s not forget about that. Oh, another 1.7 here at the end of the year, whatever the number is. Yeah,

 

Tim Webb  23:56

I saw it. I think that’ll probably pass but we’ll see. So yeah, and it’s just one of those things where it’s, it’s, you know, you want to play it safe a little bit. But as I was saying, with the laddering of the CDs, we’ve been doing that, but we’re doing short term, right? So you’re able to get, you know, on one month, you’re getting 4% type returns 4.2%. Now, it’s annualized, right? So but we’re kind of laddering that so that we’re doing it month by month on that. And then as the interest rates are being risen, sometimes the CDs rates are raised, rising and kind, but we also want that liquidity available to us so that if the markets do turn, we don’t think they’re going to turn on a dime. But we do want to have some availability with some of the capital to then be able to put that to work for our long term strategy, right? In these situations, what we’re going through right now, you have to you got to kind of battle in the short term, find your pockets get in there. And then you know, at some point, we want to get back to a long term strategy because we do believe more Kids are going to do fine over a long period of time. Historically, they always have, you know?

 

Jeff Eizenberg  25:10

Yeah, I can completely appreciate the long term view. And I think that kind of leads into the next section here, which is kind of transitioning away from what markets are doing, or doing or anticipated doing to, you know, really building a business, long term business, and the planning and structure around that, I think is super important. And, you know, making money in stock in the stock market, or in equities or bonds is one thing. But the other side is also extremely important. How about saving money in taxes or, you know, preparing your infrastructure and your business, to be able to pass it on to either, you know, other employees through employee benefit programs, Aesop’s other things like that, or succession planning, if you’re a small business, small farm, or even just a small business passing things along those ways. So if you could just maybe shift over a little bit, Tim, and I mean, there are many other strategies that people should be thinking about that outside of just where do I, you know, what stock? Do I buy? What, you know? How high is the stock market?

 

Tim Webb  26:18

Gonna go from here? Yeah, yeah, good point. So, you know, from a tax planning standpoint, you know, for our clients, businesses, organizations, farmers, we, that is something that we concentrate pretty heavily on. So we’re fair, you know, the corporate benefit space is something that we’re in and we look at it very heavily, and we bring that to our business owners as a great benefit

 

Jeff Eizenberg  26:38

large or small businesses are absolutely,

 

Tim Webb  26:41

yeah, it could be individual, individual owner only type 401 K’s right. And they didn’t realize that they could potentially get, you know, $67,000 off of their taxable wages, by setting something up for themselves themselves and their wife, whatever, your wife and husband opposite way. So just it’s one of those things that we really try to help from a financial planning standpoint. So we’re talking about market strategy, things like that. This is more under the financial planning wealth management portion of of our business. So in the corporate plan space, and or even just retirement space, right. As I mentioned, just previously, we’re $32 trillion in debt, what does that tell us? Right? It tells us at some point, tax rates are going to have to go up quite a bit to pay down our debt. So what do we do? Do we just sit here and wait for those rates to go up and continue doing what we’re doing? Or do we take advantage of some of those government, or, you know, the IRS places that allows us to put money away into a tax deferred vehicle, or an after tax deferred vehicle, ie what the Roth portion of things, and take advantage of what we can while we can build those balances up? So that in the future, because we all know, they’re kind of kicking this can down the road, at some point, you know, it’ll come home to roost, right, there’s gonna be a situation, what we try to plan for is we don’t want that situation to happen, right, as you’re going into retirement, and then oh, by the way, tax rates had just moved up, 10%, you’re gonna have to work another two years, even though you didn’t necessarily plan for it, you know, from that standpoint, right. So we’re trying to prepare our investors for the the likelihood or potential that tax rates could go up in the future. And one of those ways to do it for businesses and individuals is getting the proper retirement planning piece to your business or your individual aspect in place, and be prepared for the unknown. Right. So that that’s, that’s the big takeaway I would give.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  28:41

Yeah. And I think that, you know, a lot of people end up just putting a lot of trust in their accountants to tell them exactly what to do here. And I think that the accounting community does a great job giving advice, but at the end of the day, you know, you partner with accountants to help them be more successful in advising their clients. And I think that, you know, any accountants that are listening in here? It’s, yeah, let’s let’s all work together. Because at the end of the day, if, you know, all parties are swimming in the same direction, it’s going to be a lot faster boat, right?

 

Tim Webb  29:11

Yeah. No, no doubt, a lot of times. So that’s part of that financial planning process overall, is, you know, many times, you know, and I often say like, your money is your business. Right? It’s it’s unique, right? So

 

Jeff Eizenberg  29:26

you got like Jim Cramer does isn’t that his line? Your Money, Your business or something along those lines?

 

29:32

I don’t know. I don’t steal it from him. You know, you might. Yeah,

 

Tim Webb  29:37

well, yeah. If he said it, oh, I must have heard it passing. But I’ve been saying that for years. So but it but it remains true, right? So you have to run your money like your employee, right? So you’re putting your employee out into different markets, and if they’re not being productive, then they’re a non productive employee, and you need to get rid of that employee in in some sense, right. So um, And, and that’s also a taxes, right? So what a lot of times in the financial planning process, whether you have your own account that you love working with, or if you’re looking for one we have partnered with, with different firms in that regard that have a very sound track record of working in the financial planning process. But we oftentimes will do conference calls, you got to have your own management team and run your business, right? So we work with them and their accountants to say, Okay, well, here’s what we’re looking at. It could be Roth conversions throughout time, it could be okay, here’s where we’re at from a business standpoint, we need to figure out a way to get $150,000 off of the company books, how do we do that, from a proper retirement planning standpoint, things like that. So that when you start getting that out, you’re paying less taxes year over year, and that money is now growing for you versus going reverse back to the government. That’s, that’s that where that starts to bifurcate. And you get, okay, we’re going up this way, as opposed to paying that way, right. So and then all of a sudden, you continue to build on that. And then come retirement, diversifying your tax liabilities, be it through some Roth pieces, and like cash balance plans, then you can kind of have a situation where you’ve, you’ve also done proper tax planning, all the way through your accumulation phase. And when you get into your withdrawal phase, because we always kind of talk about there’s two phases to your retirement. Right now, if you’re not retired, you’re building your business, you’re building your individual net worth, and you’re accumulating the assets that you need to build so that you can retire a lot of times, you’ll work for 3035 years. And with the advent of new medicine, and a lot of new cool kind of technology coming in from stem cell and all that other stuff, people are going to be living longer, potentially, right. And you might be working for 35 years, and then in retirement for 30 years, right. So now, you’re not making that income, how do we? How do we account for that in the future, and that’s what we, that’s where that financial planning process comes in. We basically look at it year over year, figure out how to get you to that end goal so that you don’t have to go back to work when you’re 82. You’re like, wait a minute, I didn’t, I didn’t realize I should have done that.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  32:12

Are you question? Are you going to be able to hit the ball, as long as you are at 82?

 

Tim Webb  32:17

I’m going to try? I definitely, you know, every nowadays, because I swing so hard. It’s a couple Advil before the round. And if you go after, right, maybe

 

Jeff Eizenberg  32:28

something else help as well, you know,

 

Tim Webb  32:31

hey, you know, it’s one of those things, you know, gotta get, you know, maybe, maybe it’s something to ease the pain, if,

 

Jeff Eizenberg  32:38

you know, this is it. And I think in terms of easing the pain related to retirement planning, I think that what you guys are doing is phenomenal, you know, excited to be partnered with you guys in this project adventure to, you know, get this story out and message to more of our, you know, farming and agri businesses that are out there, you know, small, medium, large, I mean, at the end of the day, particularly in agriculture, the business has grown exponentially, you know, a small country elevators, now a mid sized country elevator, a, you know, a farm that was historically, you know, had revenues, a million, or $2 million is now, you know, for six or 8 million in revenue. And, you know, there’s a lot to manage. And, you know, there’s a lot of work that needs to go into making sure that these businesses, they used to be more family run, continue to be family run, and then grow pass on, and ultimately are successful for many generations to come. And that’s why I think that, you know, this discussion is super important today, and really wanted to have you on here, Tim, so

 

Tim Webb  33:52

I’m an Indiana guy, we have a great, we got a great farming community out here and everything like that. So yeah, we’re, you know, obviously land and everything is done very well. And, you know, what we’d like to do is we like to bring those services out to them, because a lot of times, you know, there’s not many alternatives in a specific area for them, where they can take advantage of, of a different perspective or something along those lines, there may be only two shops in their entire, you know, 30 square mile radius, and they don’t want to travel out, you know, so we go out to them, we sit down and chat with them and all that stuff. So it’s, you know, just want to let people know that they have options that they can choose from, and it’s more of a holistic approach, looking at the whole, the whole piece of the puzzle for you. So,

 

Jeff Eizenberg  34:39

yeah, this has been great, Tim, really appreciate this. I think what we’ll do is catch up with you here, maybe quarterly to see what’s going on with markets and you know, touch base on any new new updates related to these planning strategies, as well and you know, other you know, we have an office out in Kansas, you got the new office there in Crown Point, Indiana, like you said, I mean right there in foreign country and continue to grow. So congratulations on the business. You know, one last thing I’d like to ask here before the end of before we wrap up is, you know, first of all, you’ve kind of already given us your market prediction, you think that market is forward looking and likely to make a turn around here at some point. I’m not going to stick number on it for you but you know, it sounds to me like that’s that’s your your one point. And then second is you know, if you had to kind of go back you’re 21 year old body right after you graduated college. And you know, you’re gonna go out you’re gonna go play in the Major Leagues. It sounds like let’s say, let’s say that didn’t work out what what extreme sport would you find yourself interested in getting after?

 

Tim Webb  35:59

I would think I you know, and I’m currently looking into it as well even at my advanced by becoming more advanced age here. Rock climbing also in an odd way boxing so my father was the US the heavyweight Bengal bot Bengal Bowl champion at Notre Dame for two years running. So, you know, that would have been extreme I guess it’s kind of a fight sport that would have been something you know, kind of on those stressful days in the markets are down, you know, you know, a little boxing would have been okay, too. But yeah, I’m currently I’m looking into some rock climbing options for myself. Not a ton out here in Indiana overall.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  36:40

Yeah, I was gonna say probably not right in the heart of rock climbing area, but can certainly I guess I know what to get you next year for Christmas. I get your boxing boxing bag or heavy bag? Yeah, yeah. For the office, you could play ping pong. And then you know, the loser after you lose to the young bucks, you have to hit the bag.

 

Tim Webb  37:01

You know, they can’t beat me just so you know. I mean, it’s as hard as they try. It’s not gonna happen. So

 

Jeff Eizenberg  37:07

Well, Tim, really appreciate you coming on the show. How do people get in touch with you? What’s the best place to reach you? Yeah.

 

Tim Webb  37:14

So we’re at obviously, you see the RSC mag services. So we are our CM Wealth Advisors. So it’s RCM w a.com. So you can check us out there. And you know, our number and everything contact information, a lot of our groups listed on there as well, not all of our strategic partners. But a lot of our interior group is listed on that. So yeah, we’re happy to help in any way that we can. Big or small to your point, it doesn’t matter to us. You know, if you have questions, it’s a no obligation. We’re here to help. If you need some help, give us a call.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  37:47

That’s perfect. Yeah. And then tie in with the services piece. We can obviously all we could talk about both sides of the market at the same time. So

 

Tim Webb  37:56

we’re gonna come on in, right. There’s more to come on that for sure.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  37:59

So yeah, we’ll keep keep everybody posted. But all right, Tim. Well, thank you so much for your time. Super, super great to see you. Next time, we’ll get another round of golf in and catch up for a game of ping pong. But thanks again and enjoy the rest of your you know that your new year coming up?

 

Tim Webb  38:20

Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

 

This transcript was compiled automatically via Otter.AI and as such may include typos and errors the artificial intelligence did not pick up correctly.

22 Dec 2022

Populations are rising and so are food costs – can improved soil conditions save the day? With Russell Taylor of Live Earth Products

With the world population just crossing 8 Billion in November 2022, the details of what it takes to feed the world today and the question of what it will take to feed the world 30 years from now when the population is expected to approach 10 Billion is mind-blowing to many. Today’s guest, Russel Taylor, is an expert on the science behind bringing additional agriculture yield to life through soil health.

Russell Taylor is President of Live Earth Products, Inc., a premium producer of humic shale-derived products. He has spent 20 years mining, extracting, and marketing of humic acid-based products. Areas of experience include; agriculture, turf management, organic fertilizers, animal feed, and soil reclamation. His knowledge has put his company at the forefront of the soil health revolution.

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Quick Links from the episode:
For more information visit livearth.com and humictrade.org, follow @livearth on Twitter, and check out their LinkedIn.
Direct questions for Russell: russt@livearth.com
And last but not least, don’t forget to subscribe to The Hedged Edge on your preferred platform, and follow us on Twitter @ag_rcm, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
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Check out the complete Transcript from this week’s podcast below:

Populations are rising and so are food costs – can improved soil conditions save the day? With Russell Taylor

Jeff Eizenberg  00:14

Welcome to the hedge edge by RCM Ag Services where we’re getting out of the field and onto the mic to bring you weekly market updates, commentary from commodity experts in monthly interviews with the biggest names in agribusiness. Welcome to the next episode of The Hedged Edge. As always, I’m your host, Jeff Eizenberg. With the world population just crossing 8 billion in November 2022. The details of what it takes to feed the world today, and question of what it will take to feed the world 30 years from now, when the population is expected to reach 10 billion is absolutely mind blowing. Today’s guest is an expert on the science behind bringing additional agricultural yield to life through soil health. Russell Taylor is President of Live Earth Products Inc, which is a premium producer of humic shale derived products. He spent 20 years in mining, extraction and marketing of humic acid based products. Areas of expertise for Russell include agriculture, turf management, organic fertilizers, animal feed and soil reclamation. His knowledge has put his company on the forefront of the soil health revolution. Russell, welcome to show.

 

Russell Taylor  01:42

Thanks for having me.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  01:44

All right, good deal. Well, again, we’re jumping right in here. And before we get started, everyone wants to know what’s in the background there. Why is there a pile of dirt over your left and right shoulder, what’s going on back there?

 

Russell Taylor  01:59

That’s a virtual background. It’s a picture of the mine, which I’ll cover a bit more on today’s call. It’s actually from the ancient tropical forests where we mine and it’s a picture of the deposit.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  02:10

As I believe and you’re in Utah, I looked up where you are Emery, Utah, it’s basically not too far from Moab. So if we kind of put that in perspective, you know, we all know the arches and everything out there. That’s the type of soil and ground that you’re dealing with out there. Yeah.

 

Russell Taylor  02:26

Yeah, yeah. So we’re underneath the sandstone cap. The sandstone has basically kept this ancient forest trapped for millions of years. But we’re in the middle of the Utah desert of all places.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  02:38

Yeah. And so getting into your background, you would say you grew up in the dirt. Sounds like you got involved with mining and some of this opportunity here, you know, from a young age. Is that true?

 

 

 

Russell Taylor  02:53

Yes. So my father opened the mine in the early 80s. At the time, I was nine years old. And he would be out there drilling the holes, and I’d be getting the dynamite ready.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  03:03

it’s with them, I played with them at ease and throw them in the pond and try to kill frogs. So does that count?

 

Russell Taylor  03:09

Yeah, close. But my experience felt like work. I grew up around it, you know, to be in the industry for that long. It’s hard not to learn a lot of things. After college, I’ve been working here exclusively. I’ve been with Live Earth as Vice President since 95. I’ve also been the President of the Humic Product Trade Association for 10 years. I was involved with humic long before it was cool, but that’s implying that the humic industry is gaining traction now.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  03:43

No, and I think that that’s really what we’re dealing with here today. And part of the reason why I wanted to get in touch with you is that, you know, here we are, we’re in an environment where we have rising input costs to farmers, we’ve got growing world populations, and it’s just a very timely discussion, to figure out how it is that other people or companies like yours are helping the world get ready for the next phase of real agricultural growth. And, you know, we have a lot of farmers that we work with, we work with a lot of elevators and you know, and consumers of commodities. And for them, they need to buy the products, right, or they’re producing them. And, you know, the question starts to come to mind are, what is it that can be done outside of just, you know, the traditional, you know, soil kind of background with the with the soil and then plant the seeds fertilized and go, you know, are there more things that can be done and so, bringing you on here, it sounds like you’ve been doing this since the 80s. Clearly, you have a good idea of some alternative solutions and seeing an alternative As in our background, love to kind of dive in. So yeah, share with us a little bit.

 

Russell Taylor  05:05

Right. So we’ll start from the beginning and work backwards a little bit. The deposit we mined is an ancient plant deposit. So imagine a rich tropical forest, where all that material is stacked up underneath that forest. That’s what we have. Now, why is that necessary? And the reason is, you know, you’ve usually got a soil that doesn’t have sufficient organic matter, or you’ve damaged your organic matter through cultural practices, and telogen, and a lot of other things. And so farmers are finding benefit by adding these products back. There’s been a big disconnect between fertility and soil health. And those are completely separate topics where you can add something that adds fertility to the soil, which will yield crops that can be detrimental to soil health. And soil health includes variables like structure, water conservation, and nutrient retention. And so as your soil health decreases, a lot of those other problems come to the forefront. And so, as an industry, we’re looking forward and saying, okay, what can we do? What is going to be needed in the near future, and with limited resources? As far as fertilizer, and nutrients, limited water, and also reduction in land, all these 1000s of pristine acres are to be converted into roads and houses and other things. So it’s kind of a triple witching effects, where you see a lot of things competing for the same resources. And we’re ignoring soil health. So it’s extremely problematic.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  06:44

Now, you’re, you’re talking about mining and ancient forest, I think he told me on the phone, or beforehand, here 70 million year old forest, that is essentially it was a tropical, you know, equivalent of the rain forest today. You know, mining and organic matter, don’t usually go hand in hand, right. But everything that I’ve read, and you’re telling me is that there is a large deposit of organic matter in your area, that you’re able to mine extract. And then I assume further process for delivery out to farms, other agricultural systems, whether it’s, you know, I saw you’re involved with the Rose Bowl, and some other things like that. So maybe just walk us through, I mean, how much how much matters there? And is it unlimited or what’s what’s going on? Well,

 

Russell Taylor  07:46

We’ve received 1000s of acres of mineral leases over the years. We’ve been mining for the past 30 years. So, in the grand scheme of things, we’ll be here for a while. When you talk about organic matter, you need to break it into two categories, active organic matter, which is being broken down by your microbes, and then the leftovers passive organic matter, which the microbes aren’t breaking down any further. As a farmer, you know, when you’re trying to contribute organic matter back, it’s usually in stover and corn stocks. So, you know, in a normal system in nature, those things are being returned to the soil and building up your soil organic matter. So you see the cultivation over time that farmers are slowly decreasing the organic matter. And your organic matter is your storehouse, your pantry, where you store nutrients, store water, and create room for microbes and oxygen and all those things that plant X and used to live. So by adding the product that we’re selling, which is humate, you’re kind of backstopping that process. You might not be returning those organic compounds back to the soil through the crops, but you’re actually able to add this to help build the soil organic matter through other means.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  09:07

And that’s a big deal right now with areas especially there in the West. I mean, it’s so dry, you’ve got drought conditions, you know, if you could hold on to more water, then that’s a bonus. Right?

 

Russell Taylor  09:18

Right, right. And it’s kind of a catchy thing, right? You use less because you lose less. But it’s true. You know, a lot of times, we’re seeing water loss and nutrient loss just simply happen, because there’s not enough organic matter to hold those nutrients and water into the soil profile longer. And the hard part is, we’re breeding our plants to be these racehorses, for lack of a better word. We’re building these really high power hybrid plants that have to have extreme amounts of energy to perform properly. Suddenly, soils just can’t sustain those nutrient loads and have a lot of waste. It was really easy for us to be wasteful when things were inexpensive? You know, a year and a half ago, two years ago, urea was $250 a tonne, right? Last May I think it hit $1,200 a tonne. So, I mean, look at the cost difference to the farmer and say, Wow, this is a big difference, how do we get more efficient? Because those conversations were, they weren’t being held as much because it was so cheap. So now is the time where people are looking at companies like us and saying, oh, okay, let’s talk about conserving nutrients, making those things last longer, because all of a sudden, they got expensive, and that’s hitting my bottom line in a big way.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  10:35

So okay, you know, that’s, that’s right. And we’ve got input costs have gone through the roof that Russia Ukraine, raw war has caused for increased pricing on the urea, it seems like fertilizer prices are coming back down, which is a good thing for the farm and for the inputs. But you know, supplementing it with what you’re doing now, you said you using 20 to 30 acres of the 1000s, you have access to what does it look like for you to actually harvest or extract a lot of this, this this matter? And then sell it large scale? I mean, are you are you targeting, selling the product to large seed and chemical companies as a mix in with some of their current fertilizers? Are you trying to go direct to farmers? What is the kind of the business model here to you know, help direct people down your path?

 

Russell Taylor  11:29

Sure. So we are a family business. Owned by my father, operated by myself, my brother, and we are small, right? So we work through dealers, there’s no sense for us to, as a small company we try to recreate the wheel, you know, find a local agronomist and get them hired on. So we sail through distribution through a local farmer, co-op. So in Utah, for example, if you went to Intermountain Farmers Association, you would find our products readily available through their cooperative. We sell through random cooperatives within the United States, and also through some ag dealers. So that’s where you get our product, you know, make sure you’re talking to AG dealer and getting in the process.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  12:05

If this was Shark Tank, I’d be asking you, you know, who do you have your large distribution with? And, you know, try to get you in with bear or somebody like that, right. So let’s see what we can do.

 

Russell Taylor  12:20

Yeah, we have some of the largest distributors in California, for example. Penny Newman, great company distributes our products and Penny Newman’s huge and we’re happy to be a partner with that company. Some of the areas where we have less distribution, the further you get to the east, obviously, you know, freight becomes an issue. And prices get a little more sensitive to the farmers. But we distribute nationally, internationally, we sell these products as raw materials and extracts. So what you see there behind me, that’s just a picture of the raw deposit. And we’ll just take that the Sansa layer on top glass and remove it. And just take an excavator and share it. It’s soft, brown dark material, and screen it granulate it and sell it as a raw material. We also do some extracted ingredients; we sell liquid humic acid and liquid fulvic acid. What’s interesting about this deposit, you’d mentioned, you know where we’re selling it, is it going to just ag? The answer’s no. We sell into ingredients and dietary supplements, cosmetics, animal feeds, and fertilizers. And you’re thinking, well, that’s kind of an odd thing. But this is an old plant deposit. And it’s clear full of minerals. So sometimes on the label, it says “minerals”, that’s us, because they’re using it as a background, trace mineral, got it?

 

 

Jeff Eizenberg  13:31

And now it’s started, I started to think about okay, you know, we’re talking to the beginning, that, you know, we really need to focus on soil health, for around the globe to grow and increase the amount of yield of food that we can actually make available to the world population. Are there other types of deposits like this, or areas that you and your company could target around the globe to really just replicate your business and say, you know, sub Sahara Africa or, you know, China or something along those lines.

 

Russell Taylor  14:01

You know, for a company, we’re not wanting to take over the world, only all these deposits, we actually have some friends and peers in our industry through the humic product trade association that are doing similar things. So if you’re looking for a deposit in the United States where you know, we’re not reaching, go to humictrade.org and look at the member section, you’ll see a list of members that are also our peers in the industry selling and manufacturing humic acids. Now you make deposits vary in their parent material. So, you know, 75 million years ago, we were set by tropical forest, some places had grasslands or swamps, and so or peat bogs and so what made their humic deposit was a different pair of material. So they’re all a little bit different. Some might have higher humic values or lower fulvic values. And so they will vary in what they describe as age range and decomposition. So you know, some are very immature like in Canada you got those peat bogs that are fully kind of no longer peat, but slowly transitioning into these deposits. And in the listeners minds imagine, you know, when there’s an apple turned into compost, it’s a process right you know decomposition, the same thing is occurs with this old plant material, you got an ancient forest that fell down, and then it got deposited in overtime with heat and pressure. It hasn’t turned into coal yet, but it sure broken down from what it was. So that’s kind of where it’s at is somewhere between peat moss, and cool.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  15:30

Well, I’m definitely buying a bag this year from my, from my garden here in Ohio, I’m going to need it let’s let’s, let’s move on a bit here, this, this is a super interesting step, you know, the way that, you know you guys have even started this business and grown it over the years. And the fact that you’re also involved with, you know, others that really kind of as an association and attempt to, you know, kind of share the wealth. What do you think of so so you’re kind of sitting in a unique spot that you’re talking with people all over the country, and presumably the globe? I guess what do you think agriculture success looks like if we start looking out 510 2030 years from now, thanks to soil health and opportunity.

 

Russell Taylor  16:21

There’s a lot of hope on the horizon. When I say that is, you know, conservation has become a big issue, particularly because inputs got expensive. When it got expensive, all of a sudden, people started talking about conversation, until our agricultural practices decouple from petroleum based inputs will always be beholden to the industry. And the problem is us the nitrogen industry, for example, nitrogen is made through what they call the haber bosch process, they use some type of either natural gas or in Europe, or maybe some dirty coal in China to capture nitrogen out of the air and make that nitrogen. So that’s when you see a war on these fossil fuels. And you start looking at some of the dirty players where we can impact it, and nitrogen is one of them there, we’ve got to decouple our nitrogen from these processes. So in the future, you know, some businesses will succeed significantly by either figuring out a way to produce that nitrogen without fossil fuels, or conserving the nitrogen we make, maybe that’s the only way we could make this type of nitrogen. But using technology like ours, actually taking that nitrogen and making better utilization of it. So going forward, I think we’re going to focus in on not just precision ag, because Precision Ag you know, in the past, people thought, no machines and computers and strategically plants, placing fertilizer on the soil. The problem is, if that soil health is degraded, it’s not going to hold those nutrients. You know, in some ways, fertilizers are extremely soluble. So one example is – imagine, somebody told you and me that we’re going to have to drink all of our water for the month, in one sitting from a firehose, right now, both painful and inefficient, right? There’s going to be waste and water everywhere, and you and I are going to be unhappy. That’s what we’re doing with some of these crops, we’re given them a big dose of fertilizer at the beginning of the season. And at the end of the season, they’re saying what you ran out. So when we’re mimicking nature, when we’re taking that nitrogen and attaching it to a carbon, like a humic acid, that plant gets a longer look at it. So I can give you a couple examples. We recently did some work in 2018 through 2021, with the University of Tennessee, okay. We do granular fertilizers and then liquid fertilizers. We took a side dress application, that’s where you go on corn later on the season, and you give it another dose of nitrogen in that sideways application we went with and without humic acid. Now the corn that had received extra humic acid produced almost 20 more bushels of corn than the corn that did not. Now this is a lower getting better soil. And that’s the response you would want to see. Okay, how was that corn plant able to produce more corn? And the simple answer is that plant was able to get a longer look at that nutrient for it was last volatilized or converted. That’s how nitrogen is lost it is either it goes in the air as the gas gets rinsed away in your aquifers are it’s mineralized in a way that the plant can get it. So by adding these organic acids back to current fertility programs, we’re able to assist the farmer into making a better use of some of those expensive inputs like nitrogen. And I think looking forward in the future, like you said, where do we see this? This has to occur? Because I can’t see inputs going down. Right? I can’t see the war on fossil fuels and fossil fuel use decreasing. So I think that’s the first step, I think the NRCS and some of those other agencies as far as cultural practices, no till and some of those things, they’re trying to encourage farmers to do it that’s going to continue to occur. But I think getting smart with our nutrients is going to be, particularly nitrogen is going to be some of the pivotal things we’ll see in the next 2030 years.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  20:21

I think, you know, farming has evolved, and it will continue to, especially in other areas of the world, where, you know, the people, sometimes they’re just stuck with the soil that they have. The question becomes is, is there a economies of scale for you, your business and the farmers in far out regions away from where these deposits are, for them to be able to, again, economically, bring in the right amount of additional soil or nutrients that you’re talking about, to that region? And I guess that’s, that’s a question for you. I don’t know.

 

Russell Taylor  20:58

So there is a document out there by the NRCS, that talks about soil health, and how to build soil health and how to build soil organic matter.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  21:06

Yeah, we’ll make that one available in the notes in the show notes here.

 

Russell Taylor  21:10

Sure, sure. So I’ll just summarize, you know, a couple points out that real quickly. It talks about how to change soil organic matter over time. And the ones that you’ve got to remember is, it’s like eating an elephant, you know, you’ve got to do this one bite at a time and slowly, slowly commit to doing it. Because if you start backing up the numbers, let’s say for example, you took an acre of soil, six to eight inches deep, and that’s where most of your corn would root right, and you took that acre soil six, eight inches deep, and you made a big pile, that’s going to make 2 million pounds of soil in that pile. So if we said, let’s change our soil organic matter, 1%, 1% of 2 million is 20,000 pounds of pure organic matter. So you’re going to tell a farmer look, you need to put up 20,000 pounds of stable organic matter. Now stables got the big Asterix next to it because corn stover and manure and all those things have a 10 to one conversion, when it when the soil microbes breaking down takes 10 pounds of active organic matter to make one pound of passive. So that means to get your 20,000 pounds of stable organic matter, you have to put 200,000 pounds of active organic matter. Okay, no farmers putting down 100 tonnes of anything. Exactly. That’s that when we’re talking about taking bites us at a time, you’ve got to commit to it now, what’s the upside and the benefits and if you read that document, we’ll see you know what percent change organic matter will conserve 27 to 30,000 more gallons of water per acre. All of a sudden, that makes a difference, you could fill a few swimming pools with that amount of water. If let’s say you’re dryland wheat, or dryland corn, you’re conserving 30,000 more gallons of water per acre, that’s a big deal. You know, it’s not acres and acres feet of water, but it’s enough water to maybe make a difference on a yield. So that over time plus the nutrient retention is real big reasons why you should increase soil organic matter. And that down the road is going to turn into profits. If you’re retaining nitrogen, it’s because you’re retaining the water, it’s got that water there nitrogen in it and keep preventing it from leaching away.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  23:12

So you’re you’re really if I had to put an analogy around it, you’re saying that your efforts and these efforts in general, whether it’s through you, your company, or your association, it’s more of a dial than a switch, you really have to commit to this over time, and see is to see the results.

 

Russell Taylor  23:32

Right now there is one little nuance in there and it these raw materials, like I’ve talked about behind me in bulk, or use the soil amendments. In some of the extracts, we make these products act like a biostimulant, where we see some accelerated plant growth with these solubilized some of the components, so people will actually add those extracts to the fertilizer, I call it a dealer cocktail, but they’re adding them and what we see is kind of a one plus one equals three, where the added benefit of the humic acid caused that plant to take those nutrients in quicker and allow that plant to achieve a higher genetic potential or better yield.

 

 

 

Jeff Eizenberg  24:15

Well, this has been super interesting Russell, I, you know, don’t spend much of my days thinking too much about the organic matter and soil. But today’s has been one of those days and I actually really enjoyed this opportunity to speak with you. Are there anything else that you know, that we’ve missed here that you want to make make the audience aware of before we kind of wrap up?

 

Russell Taylor  24:40

Well, you know, I try to fly the banner for the industry as much as I can about promoting as the president of the trade association. I tried to be selfless and say hey, you know that I’m trying to help everybody out. But you know, we’re a small family business. We’d like to make sure we’re promoting our name out there. And it’s small companies like myself that are there selling these products. You’re not seeing large agricultural conglomerates really getting behind this yet. And that’s primarily through what’s going on with some changes in laws, how they treat these products. And it’s a long topic, but I’ll just cover it real briefly is the way our government acts, they have got a law for pesticides. And then then the states are in charge of regulating the fertilizers. So there’s this gap in the middle where soil amendments like ours, they’re not a pesticide, they’re not a fertilizer. And so there’s just a gray area. And so there’s not been a lot of laws, rules and testing methods that have been real favorable for our industry. And that’s all in the process of changing now. So you’re going to see updated seals of approval through trade association that show, you know, this, this testing method is approved for products like ours. And consumers should just ask more about how these products are tested and get informed. And the other thing is, there’s a lot of confusion between black products. And I’ll give you one quick example from our chart. Now, biochar, it has an application. And it is nowhere near humic substances. Biochar, somebody’s burnt trash that they didn’t they want to hold in a landfill, it’s a burden on the farm. They’re trying to sell to the soil and it’s beneficial in soils that have low pH, and they’re well drained. Okay, that’s the only the only place where biochar has been shown to be beneficial in soils that have higher pH and because biochar has the lambing potential, and it also has its germinated germination inhibition. Now, those two things, you know, might be too technical agronomy, but basically, you’re putting a product down, that keeps the seed from germinating. So if you just put a crop in the ground, he put something down, it inhibits germination, that’s going to be bad. So you look at it a little bit deeper, I would encourage anybody listening to this, you know, look at the industry, look at what they’re trying to do, and learn a little bit more the difference in these products because humic substances definitely differ between biochar just because it has carbon. They’re not all the same. So let’s talk about the how this carbon is bonded and how it’s useful.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  27:26

Well, we’ve got your video on video now. So you know, when we see you on the steps of the USDA, with with a with a picketing sign telling them to pay more attention to your products, we’ll, we’ll be sure to, you know, tie that back to you.

 

Russell Taylor  27:39

Thank you. Yeah. You may see us on the Rose Bowl, we been on the Rose Bowl Stadium since 2006.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  27:46

okay, well, now that we’re talking, I’d like to go to the next game. The one that coming up here that would if you got extra tickets, I’ll be there.

 

Russell Taylor  27:52

Yeah, we’ll talk offline. I’ll hook you up.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  27:53

All right, I like that. Last question for you ask all my guests. It’s kind of a fun thing. Off topic. Since we’re talking football and sports, in your background, or in your I guess your in your favorable, previous 21 year old body? What extreme sport would you be most inclined to do try or be involved in

 

Russell Taylor  28:18

Extreme sport that I would want to be involved in? Rock climbing, you know, in my area people do a lot of bouldering. And I see the kids out there like lizards on a rock. And I think, you know, if I was younger and didn’t feel like falling off a giant rock that might be interesting to me.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  28:37

Well, seems like you’ve probably got a lot of them there around you so that maybe maybe this will inspire you to get back out there. All right, Russell, this has been great. What is the best way to get in touch with you if people have questions or want to reach out,

 

Russell Taylor  28:50

You’re always welcome to reach out through the website, livearth.com.You can also call us, we’re a small family business. I’m a certified crop advisor. I like picking up the phone talking to people. And we’re always available by phone. And that’s 800-846-2817.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  29:10

Excellent. Well, this has been a real pleasure to appreciate your time and interest here. And, you know, I was kind of risk management approach. You know, we obviously try to help as many people just stay informed with, you know, all that’s happening in agriculture. And this is obviously not anything brand new, but it is on the forefront. So appreciate the time, and maybe we’ll get a chance to hook back up again. And, you know, maybe you’re you tell us you found, you know, the Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton in that mine or something like that.

 

Russell Taylor  29:43

Yeah, we won’t tell anybody about that. We don’t want to turn that mine into an archeological dig.

 

Jeff Eizenberg  29:48

Yeah, right. Yeah. Good idea. All right, Russell. Well, thanks for your time. I really appreciate it and we’ll be talking to you soon. Have a great holiday.

 

 

Russell Taylor  29:56

Thank you for the interview.

 

 

This transcript was compiled automatically via Otter.AI and as such may include typos and errors the artificial intelligence did not pick up correctly.

 

 

 

07 May 2021

AG MARKET UPDATE: MAY 1-7


Corn continued it’s hot run this month with a great week in both old crop and new crop prices. As Brazil’s safrinha crop keeps facing a dry outlook, pressure is mounting on the US to produce a great crop to fulfill world demand. The US forecast is turning wetter for many major growing areas but remains cool for this time of year. The cool weather is not ideal for early growth, but the rain will be welcome in areas facing drought conditions (see map at bottom). There is a rumor of more Chinese interest in new crop which helped propel old crop to end the week. Despite poor exports this week, this news, along with South America’s troubles, have been the market moving news this week. The US corn crop is seen at 44% planted at the start of the week beginning May 3.

Via Barchart

 


Soybeans followed Corn this week as they also saw strong gains. China’s ASF news has slowed as of late which is good for export expectations to China. The world demand has continued to be strong and helpful to prices in both South America and the US, while US beans remain competitive in the world market even at these levels. The recent wet and colder weather across much of the US is not expected to cause any issues for the soybean crop except maybe pushing planting back in some areas where farmers also must wait to plant corn. 25% of the US soybean crop is seen as being planted for the week beginning May 3.

Via Barchart

 


The big question right now: What is going on with cotton? Cotton has not enjoyed in the rally in 2021 that other commodities have. The demand has been there, but there are already worries about the 2021 cotton crop. Normally these are a recipe for higher prices, right? The fundamentals would agree as higher comparative prices for other commodities may take away some cotton acres by the end of planting season. The technical side has been cotton’s enemy as of late as they have not been able to make new contract highs, unlike the grains. The world shipping bottleneck does not appear to be getting any better and as the US continues to come out of lockdowns along with other countries demand will only make it worse. This problem needs to be solved sooner rather than later.

Via Barchart

 


Dow Jones
The Dow was up this week while other indexes were mixed with the Nasdaq and Russel falling. As earnings continue to be reported many of the winners of the last year have posted strong quarters but it appears the momentum behind them have slowed as good earnings have sometimes been followed by selling.

Lumber
Check out our recent post about the lumber market and what all has been going on.

Podcast
Check out or recent podcasts with guests Elaine Kub and Kyle Little. Elaine and Jeff discuss grain markets and trading grains while Kyle helps give insight into the Lumber markets and what has been going on.

Listen with Kyle:

Listen now with Elaine

CME
CME Group announced this week that it will not re-open its trading pits that were closed last March at the start of the pandemic. The Eurodollar Options pit will remain open. See the full press release here.

US Drought Monitor
The map below shows the current drought conditions throughout the US as planting continues across the country.

 

Weekly Prices

Via Barchart.com

 

 

07 Apr 2021

Mastering the Grain Markets with the Grain Market Master Elaine Kub

If you’ve taken an ag econ class, been in the industry on the producer or investor side, or just have a general interest in the ag space, there’s a good chance that you’ve come across Mastering the Grain Markets by Elaine Kub. It’s the perfect intro to understanding ways that could help you make money trading grain, and we’re lucky to be joined by the author herself to talk about her books, designer contracts, crop opportunities, market outlook, what the next “game changers” in the ag business are going to be and more.

 

Listen to the entire episode on your preferred platform:

 

 

Follow Elaine on Twitter, and buy her book Mastering the Grain Markets here.

And last but not least, don’t forget to subscribe to The Hedged Edge on your preferred platform, and follow us on TwitterLinkedIn, and Facebook.

Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, business, or tax advice. All opinions expressed by podcast participants are solely their own opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of RCM Ag Services, their affiliates, or companies featured. Due to industry regulations, participants on this podcast are instructed not to make specific trade recommendations, nor reference past or potential profits. And listeners are reminded that managed futures, commodity trading, and other alternative investments are complex and carry a risk of substantial losses. As such, they are not suitable for all investors. For more information, visit www.rcmalternatives.com/disclaimer