Farm4Profit Podcast
Mastering Market Volatility: Ever.Ag’s Approach to Agricultural Risk Management
Mon, 9 Sep 2024
What's Working in Ag Segment - Brandt Grain Cartshttps://www.brandt.ca/Divisions/Agricultural-Products/Products/GrainCarts?srsltid=AfmBOor744C24pnPr6CbPH5qCd7bKDtlMfgwVV0I0hLvaQKmG4ffU9XFIntroductionOverview of Ever.Ag: Discuss the company's mission to provide innovative AgTech solutions and empower agricultural supply chains through risk management, market intelligence, and advisory services.Guest Introduction: Introduce key representatives from Ever.Ag, highlighting their expertise in risk management and advisory roles.Segment 1: Understanding Risk Management in AgricultureWhat is Risk Management? Explore what risk management means in the agricultural context, including hedging strategies, insurance products, and market analysis.Challenges in Agriculture: Discuss the main risks that farmers face today, such as market volatility, fluctuating commodity prices, and supply chain disruptions.Ever.Ag’s Approach: How does Ever.Ag help clients navigate these challenges? Talk about their comprehensive risk management services for livestock, dairy, crops, and grain.Segment 2: Tools and Strategies Provided by Ever.AgRisk Management Solutions: Dive into specific tools and services, like Dairy Revenue Protection (DRP), Livestock Gross Margin (LGM-Dairy), and grain management strategies. How do these products help stabilize incomes and manage market risks?Advisory Services: Discuss Ever.Ag’s advisory role, including how they assist farmers in developing risk management plans tailored to their unique needs.Technology Integration: How does Ever.Ag use technology to enhance risk management? Explore their use of data and market intelligence tools to keep clients informed and ready to respond to market changes.Segment 3: Real-World ImpactCase Studies: Share stories of farmers who have successfully used Ever.Ag’s services. For example, how has risk management helped dairy producers navigate recent market challenges?Success Metrics: What are the measurable benefits that farmers see when working with Ever.Ag? Highlight examples like reducing price volatility and improving financial stability.Segment 4: Future of Risk Management in AgricultureEmerging Trends: Discuss new trends in risk management and how Ever.Ag is adapting to future challenges, such as climate change and evolving market conditions.Advice for Farmers: What advice does Ever.Ag have for farmers looking to improve their risk management strategies today?ConclusionKey Takeaways: Summarize the essential points from the discussion and how listeners can implement some of these strategies.Call to Action: Encourage listeners to explore Ever.Ag’s services and consider reaching out for a personalized risk management consultation.This structure should provide a thorough and engaging exploration of Ever.Ag's risk management tools and their impact on the agricultural industry. Let me know if you need further details!How do you juggle work and personal life? Lori Nelsen | Grain Marketing AdvisorEver.AgEmpowering Supply Chains to Feed a Growing World Marshall, MOO: [email protected] Kristin Stien | Grain Marketing AdvisorEver.AgEmpowering Supply Chains to Feed a Growing WorldAtkins, IowaM: [email protected]
But again, a lot of even the AI stuff is just back to the basics of where's going to be the tip of this, right? And continually adjusting that. But at the end of the day, right, you guys are talking about the control factor. And do we really want to give all our control over at once? Or do we want to slowly test the waters and see, okay, here's the next step to go into?
Ladies and gentlemen, farmers, ranchers, and distinguished guests, thank you for listening to the Farm for Profit podcast, where we discuss the latest ideas, methods, trends, and techniques available to help your farm achieve higher levels of farm profitability. Remember, if you aren't farming for profit, you won't be farming for long.
And listeners, welcome back to the Farm for Profit podcast. I am Tanner Winterhoff. You are? I am. Glad you are. Today. That's who I am.
I wouldn't want to be Tanner Winterhoff.
This is Corey here, too. It's a very taxing, I wouldn't want to be Corey. No. No one wants to be me. See? You give it out, I'll give it right back.
We are post-Farm Progress show. Hopefully that went well since we're recording that. This is before then.
We record this just in case it didn't go up.
We're getting ready for Husker Harvest Days. We're going to be heading out there. It'll be a fun time. That's like going into the belly of the beast.
So if you think about it right now, are you ready to go to the field? Is your equipment ready to go?
Boy, I hope so. You think? I hope so. We've started that. It is the middle of August now. We have started that process. I need the harvest distraction is what we need to get out from under these doom and gloom markets. That's right.
And that's going to be one of the things we're going to help focus ourselves on today is we really want to make sure that you have the tools and all of the connections available to help manage the risks that this market is going to put forth.
So just remember, if there's something that you're thinking about, you want to learn more about, or a guest that you think would be great to provide the rest of our listeners feedback, reach out. FarmForProfitLLC at gmail.com. Send us a message. Drop us a line. 515-207-9640. Last show we recorded, someone was calling.
Yeah, did they leave a voicemail?
They did. I haven't checked it yet. I didn't get it plugged in fast enough. I was going to answer it live on air. So if you guess when we're recording, you might just get put live on the podcast. Yeah. That's it.
Fridays is usually a pretty good... Most of the day is usually a pretty good chance we're recording. Anymore, it seems like.
It is.
But we also want you to interact with us. Give us some comments on social media. Leave us a review. Spotify, Apple, any place you listen. That's what helps us grow our podcast and gives us validity. So thank you for doing that. If you've done it, give us five stars if you haven't.
That's right. And what do we always say? If you give us five stars, we really don't care what you type. Right.
We want you to type good things. Just be like, five stars, Tanner looks goofy. Yeah. You could put in there. A tavern is a bar, not a tavern.
That would be about perfect. The number of comments we've gotten on that has been astounding. And I'm still, maybe that should be my Peter Thiel con, whatever it is. Yeah. For Vance Crowe. Yeah. I like that. Tavern. Yep. Huh. That's a good one. Anyway. Hey Taylor, as the Nutrient Maximizer Strategic Account Manager, we're sitting here in the fall. Our farmers are getting their equipment ready.
What's the next step that they need to take on?
There is a lot of equipment aspects and pieces when it comes to fall applications, especially when you think about anhydrous ammonia. There's all sorts of toolbars, knives, hoses, pumps that we need to be thinking about. So just making sure that we're actively looking over that equipment, making sure that any hoses that are pinched or crimped don't have any cracks in them.
We're not going to have any mid-season leaks or blowouts. So just really thoroughly looking over all of our equipment is going to be really important.
Okay, so the equipment's ready. What do we need to think about next?
Equipment's ready. Let's make sure when we begin making those applications that we are thinking about the soil temperature. We really want the soil temperature to be 50 degrees and falling, so steady at that 50 degrees and then falling below that.
That's going to help decrease that nitrification process, especially when we have Inserver Instinct next year with it, slowing that overall conversion rate from ammonium to nitrate.
Is that going to be different for our producers all across our listening base?
Time frame wise, yes. It's going to depend on where you're at within the U.S. and where we're making these fall applications. The biggest rule of thumb is that 50 degrees and falling for the most part.
And if our listeners have more questions for you or want to learn more about the products that they can put in during these application processes, tell them what those are and how they can find out that information.
Absolutely. So reaching out to your local retailer or Corteva territory manager as well as going to nitrogenstabilizers.com.
I love it. Thanks again for jumping on with us, Taylor, and providing our listeners with a little bit of value this fall.
Thank you.
Well, Corey, coffee shop, sitting at the bar, whatever you want to call it, this is a What's Working in Ag segment. And it's fall. And one of the things that I think probably works the hardest on anybody's harvest operation is the grain cart.
Yeah. There's not a lot of things working in ag right now, but we know that the grain carts are going to be working.
It's going to have to be. I mean, if the USDA says as many bushels are out there, that grain cart's going to work overtime.
Yeah.
So you need to have a good one.
You need to have a big one. You need to have multiple. You need to have a good operator in there. But you need to have the features on the cart that make your long, long days in the cart easy.
And I think we've got one of our earliest fans. to join us today on this podcast. Certainly one of the loudest champions of Farm for Profit, and we appreciate him. Mr. Tom, welcome.
Thank you. Appreciate it.
We appreciate your support, the years of support.
And multiple companies.
I was going to say, is it one of the only ones that we've had that actually, our support has transferred companies.
It has. And I think you do a good job of picking companies with quality products, which is why it makes it easy to transition into putting farm for profit content together.
It is. It really is. A lot of family owned companies and just like you guys, grassroots. And I really like that.
Yeah. So explain to us now what your role is with Brandt.
My role is a product specialist for grain carts. So I literally support anybody that needs help with the demos, anything, any questions, resource. That's all I am is a resource. And it's a blast. You can't find a better job where all you have to do is worry about one product, know all the nuts and bolts on it and
hydraulics you name it and it's also a grain cart so you don't got motor you don't got a lot of other things to worry about i mean a lot of people caught a box with an auger so it's a lot of fun to get out there and really show them where the return on investment is on a grain cart and how important it is and i know you guys are just talking about it like you gotta get the bushels out of the field and one of the most efficient ways to do that is a grain cart right
So you, before this, you were with Brandt as well, but you just covered Iowa and you covered all 30 some products?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. So that's what I did. And then I was a territory manager and then took a promotion last June to now all I do is focus on grain carts. And I actually will be in Canada next week in Alberta doing some demos up there with their wheat. So it's been really interesting just learning all the different, you got millet and rice and you name it, Durham.
I didn't know what that was, cereal rice. Like I learned a lot of stuff. I mean, it's like, In Iowa, you're used to corn and soy beans. That's about it. I mean, yeah, you get a little bit of wheat here and there and it's oats and different things, but nothing like when you get out and then you all of a sudden you get canola. And so you learn a lot quick. Right.
So as you think about the grain cart, what's your favorite part about a grain cart?
Favorite part about the grain cart is especially when people have ideas. We work with a lot of different companies. Stein Seed, one of them, a local company, they had a very specific need on what they wanted and we build them a couple of custom grain carts. So I feel really good that
When people have an idea, they bring it to you and we've had a relationship with them for years and find out what the needs are that are out there and conquer that need. One of my favorite features is that back door, that ground access door. We were the first, now three other companies will have it now at the Farm Progress Show you'll have in a few weeks. They'll have it also.
But we were the first ones five years ago to bring out a door that you can literally get into that's chest level. It has a little ladder. You crawl right up in the cart. And the reason for that was 100% clean outs. People are changing varieties, doing different things. A lot of custom harvesters were going to literally the next field, so they literally could clean out 100% by getting in this door.
The biggest thing you can get into them is getting back out of them. Some guys had injuries, wrist injuries or shoulder injuries, and that was the case with Stein Seed. And they said the safety was number one, and that was the one thing that they were some of the catalysts. That was a big reason why they bought our carts was so the guys could get into 100% clean outs and get out safely.
Right. It's a safety and just ease thing. A lot of guys are using a big air compressor to do it. To kick that big old air compressor gun up the ladder, kind of hook that in your arm and climb up one-handed and get over the edge and drag that thing down. It's just not safe. It's not easy. And so guess what? When it's not safe and it's not easy, you're probably not going to do it.
And on our new DXT grain carts, we actually have a clean-out door that runs the entire length. So after you get in there, It's so nice that the doors, the entire length of the product, it's easy to get it out.
It just drops?
Yeah, it drops. There's a handle on the back, and you can drop, and then literally 100% clean out. You can't get much simpler than that. Okay.
But now what are the odds of that opening when it shouldn't open?
So it's actually nice and secure in the back. So you literally have to go out and trip it. Like it's just not one of those things that's just going to open while you're going down the road.
It's a DXT. It must be dual auger.
Yes, correct. Yep. Yep.
Yeah, because that would really suck if you were running through the field and all of a sudden the combine operator says, you're leaving a train of grain.
And also, just to kind of tell on ourselves, but this is how you get better. We had the DXR, the last version that was five years ago, and now we have the new version out. We listened to our customers and we had almost the same kind of door, but it was very hard to get that to adjust. So after you do that literally a thousand times or a hundred times, things start to wear.
Well, then we figured out, hey, Let's make that so we can adjust it better so then it has a tighter fit without having to buy kits, things like that. And, again, that's one thing I love about Brandt is that you take the time to listen, especially in a role like I am. We literally go see the farmers. I write this down, and I got three guys on speed dial engineers that, hey, guys, here's what I saw.
What do you think? Is this worth something to go into and fix?
Well, and if you guys are building two farms, one-off carts for a company. I mean, that's pretty cool. That's almost customizable. I'm sure they had to pay for it. But if it's a need that you need, you're willing to pay for it. I bet you couldn't go to a lot of companies and go, I need this auger to be three foot longer or something like that. It'd be hard to change.
Five years ago, I got to participate on a keg. So I got to be one of the, I'm going to call them a panelist. It felt like a panelist, but we got to jump on conference calls. Unfortunately, we got it right into COVID. So we didn't get to come see the finished product. because that's something that you work with on these teams.
If you have farmer input, the farmer gets to see this product and the results of their input all put together before anybody else does. But it was a lot of fun because I used to spend a lot more time in the grain cart. Now I spend a lot more time in the semi because we've got grain carts that are a lot easier to run. It's a feature that is a hinge point in most operations.
But it was cool to know that there was a company that existed that cared at all what it was like running the cart. Cause that's all I was. I didn't buy the cart. I didn't work on the cart.
You never even ran one.
No, I would run it. I had ran it for the in-laws. That was my job. Not the brand. Oh, not the brand. You ran a grain cart. That's correct.
You ran a grain cart. So you were just like, what are your pain points running a grain cart? What do you not like? What do you like? What would you like to see?
Absolutely. That's a good point. I didn't realize that at the time, but yeah, I was running a different grain cart and was talking about what I wanted different.
Which what's it matter, right? That's,
trying to get grain from the field into a semi or into a wagon and out you just want things to be easy yep right as efficient as possible concept goes across all brands yeah but you were talking about before we started this that that's still something that brand's doing and you like to be able to take people to see it being built yes yeah so we got a we're literally building usa here so right here in hudson illinois i say here but it's a couple hours that way like i get excited because it is still usa brand and we build them in hudson illinois and
Yeah, I welcome tours. So if people want to come, uh, let us know and we can get a tour lined up for me. If you're in that Bloomington normal area, Hudson's just a little town right beside there, but it's just right on the outskirts of Bloomington, uh, in Illinois. And you can literally see either the XT or the DXT. That's all they build there.
So that whole factory is just dedicated to the grain carts. And so that's pretty exciting because a lot of plants have multiple things going on, which is fine, but that's one thing Brandt decided, even though they're, they are a Canadian company. they build all their grain carts there and export them. So we build all our own track carriages, things like that are all built in-house.
Why do you think that is?
Why do we do it there?
Why not in Canada?
Well, because the biggest thing is, is that we have so much need down here for the grain carts. I mean, you look at the ice states again, there's just so, I mean, I was even down in Arkansas and Mississippi, the rice down there was amazing. And we have a really good rice cart with the XT. And it's amazing when you put three or four different carts together and And rice is so abrasive.
And when you see we have like an extra quarter-inch lip on our auger, when you see that extra auger or the extra flighting that we put on there, the hardening, you can tell the difference when you have carts lined up that are in people's – you go to a dealer and you see carts lined up. You can see after a season that does matter. Like the little things, the little attention to detail does matter.
So the XT, that stands for?
That's just a single auger. Okay.
Okay. But then the DXT, that's your dual augers. What's the letters X and T stand for?
I should probably know this as a specialist. I do not know.
I'm like, it's not extended reach because extended starts with an E. I don't know, Corey. You got to run one last fall.
I got to run the XT, an 1100 bushel.
And what did you like about it?
Oh, boy. I loved a lot of stuff about it. I mean, first off, the extended reach. Stick is what I called it. And you might have seen that going around on social media. They came out and took a picture of me. I was like, that's a big stick on that thing. And it is. And it's a corner. So it's a corner cart. Corner auger cart is what we'd call it. A corner auger cart or a corner grain cart?
Corner auger on a grain cart. There you go. Right? So it doesn't have the dual auger, which we like for seed beans and stuff. The minimal amount of auger touches is what they want to see on grain handling for that kind of stuff.
And I'm telling you guys, I don't know how long the thing is, but when it sticks out of the corner of that green cart, I just have to tilt my head not even all the way 90 degrees to the left. It's right there, and you can see it.
It's usually nine foot in front of the hitch.
Yeah, and the ease of – you don't realize that, like how easy that is. But at the end of the day, when you're running an older cart and you're literally turning past your shoulders and you wake up the next day and you can't figure out why your neck is stiff – It's the grain cart.
And not only that, on that same stick you're talking about, on that auger, on that downspout, we actually have a light kit there that you can actually see the flow door. Where's that gate at? And especially with young operators, if you tell them, hey, only light up a couple lights, that just shows you if we can light up all the lights, that's when the flow gate's completely open.
And then when it's closed, they're all off. And it's so much easier doing that than people, like you said, crank your neck back trying to find out where's that little indicator at. The slide, yeah. It's right there. Yeah.
Which is huge when you're trying to get them big loads out, because if you got that thing cranked all the way open, RPMs all the way up, you're dumping a lot of bushels every second.
A lot of people have a, I know you guys have even talked about this on previous podcasts. They get a lot of foreign workers and sometimes there's a language barrier and the light is easy. Like the light, two lights, two lights. So you can just show them like, Hey, don't go past two lights until they get comfortable. And there's just little things like that that just help.
And again, the age barrier, I mean, I've seen 13, 12 year olds out there running the carts. And they're able to run them and efficiently with very minimal training.
Yep. The other things I liked about it, which I'm going to be completely honest here. So it's got – it came with the optional spout. I don't know. What do you call that that goes – Twisty spout? Twisty, tippy spout, whatever. It goes in all these different directions, and it's got like a little controller.
A joystick.
Yeah, a little joystick in the cab. And I'm like, I don't need that. Like, I know what I'm doing. Tell you what, at the end of the day – If I didn't have that or, like, something went down on it or SEV popped out or something like that, it pissed you off. And I think part of that is because that is so long. You're so far away from the semi, you know, that, like, you don't have that judge.
Where before you had to, like, almost be touching the semi when you pulled up. And now you've got that freedom. Like, you can be anywhere and still hit it perfectly, get all the nooks and crannies filled. And then I really like that clean outdoor, too, because we do do seed beans and the ability to do that.
guarantee you when we had our old cart it was not getting cleaned out like it should have been just because of the safety right and not easy the effort yeah yeah we'd open the door run it a little bit maybe dump little beans in there run that through okay she's clean yep you know which i guarantee you there's stuff up in the corners and things like that they didn't get clean no i totally see that what what colors do you make okay so we got blue red and then we got black and then uh
You have green also. I've got to keep our deer guys happy. Mine was green. Mine was green. I will say that. Keep our deer guys happy. Match nicely. But, again, the product offering, that's a lot of fun because colors matter on the farm. It really does. The black has been the most popular lately just for resale value. It goes everywhere. Yeah, but we do a good job.
I feel like we need a black one that's wrapped in Farm for Profit and has the Iowa State black uniforms on it.
Oh, that would be cool. That would be nice.
That would be cool. I've never understood this because I've only had single augers. Obviously, when you go to the dual cart, dual auger cart, they get bigger. But if I'm looking at an 1100 bushel and an 1100 bushel, what does the dual auger bring?
So the neat thing about the dual auger is, especially when people have wet corn, it really helps get that out better. Also depends on when you get in, especially in Canada, some of these bigger guys use those. They don't have the same rules that we do down here. They can haul a lot more.
So when we get to the 2,500 bushel cart, just filling those super bees, they call them, getting those things full. That, to me, is very important. As much grain as you can get in there. And also unload it quickly. When it's 1,000 bushel per minute to unload, that's a big difference. And, again, with all that control you're talking about with that joystick, you can get up there.
And, I mean, we had a guy, I'm just going to go over a guy in Nebraska, and he had literally running four carts. There were 2,000 bushels. And they had nine X9 combines running. It was crazy. And these guys were running just full out, and they had tandem axle with steerable axles.
And the reason they picked us over a competitor was every time they were turning in the field, their axles didn't turn as far, and they were literally breaking studs off, so breaking complete spindles off the front.
Oh, my gosh.
After they had, just last year, these guys got to run it, just hearing their success and how much it was, I mean, the uptime, things like that, with that dual auger cart. You can see that front window. I know I'm sorry I'm pointing, but they have just a lot of little things. That was actually brought up by that keg thing like Tanner was talking about. People wanted better visibility.
So it's just little things that people really can – I mean, just an easy use and we listen. And that was one of the things that I got to do also last year. That's how I ended up out there in Nebraska in different places was we had a field follow-up program. We literally went out and went to 50, I went to 50 different customers, asked them what they liked, 50.
And it didn't matter if it was a loose bolt or a scratch. Hey, what do you, what on your cart did you like or not like? Kind of like what we did with Corey also at his farm. Just, just find out. And, We compile all that information. We took 22 of those things, like the top 22 things that were pretty common, and we actually got a lot of those implemented before this fall again.
So we have just people dedicated. Again, we have a whole team in Illinois. That's all they do is build carts. And then on the backside of that, people don't always see. You have your engineers, your design engineers, your test engineers. They're constantly testing and trying new things. So that's what I get excited about is we can literally go right from the farmer, from the buddy seat,
Go right back into that, we call it a war room. We go in there, talk as a group. Hey, this is what we're doing. And the ownership's like, let's do it. Like, if this is what the people want, let's do it. Because, again, at the end of the day, if you can keep your customers happy and providing things that no one else is willing to provide, that's what sets you apart. That's cool.
I love it. These dual auger carts, I get why they're there. Because you can only go so tall. You can only go so wide. And these carts are getting bigger and bigger. The single auger, you can only go so big because eventually you don't get the angle to flow the grain down there.
And I think even that single auger cart that I had, that 1,100 bushel, I could have seen if Tanner was doing 30% high moisture corn that there could be some hangups. In that kind of stuff with a single auger. So yeah, I understand.
And we also have a sump. And so a lot of other people, they have different ways that they get their grain out. But our cross auger comes up and then before it goes to the vertical auger, it actually goes down into a sump and it's not impeded by anything else. Some of our competition have the gearbox down there where the gearbox actually gets in the way of that grain transfer.
Well, we literally have a sump that everything falls into and then takes the grain out cleanly. So that's why, again, we can get a thousand bushel a minute and be efficient at it. And we also have a 22-inch load and a 24-inch unload. And it's pretty exciting when everything runs right and those guys are like, I mean, the next truck, next truck.
And just watch, like I say, those guys, especially with 9x9 running out there in the field, they are always, especially in the corn, they always are waiting for somebody. And they don't want to wait. So that's where you lose your efficiency.
That's impressive. That's great. Well, this has been a lot of good insights on grain carts. And I know there's more that we could talk about. So I'm going to send them to brant.ca. Yeah. Click on the grain cart tab, and we were just cruising the website here watching and having this conversation. Is that the best way, you think, for them to get a hold of you?
Yeah, it is. If not, then call me, too. If I can throw my phone number out, it's 515-480-2047. I live here in Iowa, but I travel all over. I mean, we've got some great airports with Iowa City and Des Moines. We end up just about anywhere.
Did I see on my ad that I haven't seen, but people have sent me, that you can save, like, Like, what is it, $7,500 or something like that?
Yeah, they got rebates out now. So, yeah, we got some. Again, anything you can do to get a sale, that's what we're here for.
I love it. Well, thanks again for hanging out with us, Tom. We appreciate it. Thank you, guys.
Appreciate it.
No need for any more of this introduction. Thank you for listening. We appreciate that. And now we get to talk to two wonderful ladies that we met at the Iowa Ag Expo. Our nose took us there. Yeah, their perfume was just – oh, no, it wasn't perfume.
It was popcorn. We were walking down, and it was about lunchtime. We hadn't had lunch yet, and I think we were skipping lunch, and we're like, you smell that popcorn? And it's like, yeah, where's that coming from? It's like, oh, it's down that aisle. It's a dead end. Let's go down that way and found it. And we were there for the popcorn and learned a heck of a lot more.
I think you got three refills of popcorn while we were sitting there. Maybe. Maybe. I do like popcorn. And we set this meeting up thinking, hey, we're going to do a virtual recording. They're miles away from us.
Yeah.
And it turns out that they are literally a couple miles away from us.
Ten miles away from us.
We thought they were going to be a state away, and they are ten miles from us. But nonetheless, I can't wait to get the message from them. We have two ladies from ever.ag here to enlighten us today. Welcome. Welcome.
Thank you. Thank you, guys. And thanks for the perfume suggestion. I've been wondering if my scent is working, but I think I'm going to switch to butter.
Butter. You guys should do that. You could have like a little scent machine, puts out all the good smells of ag that we've talked about here on the podcast. You know, like fresh cut grass, fresh cut alfalfa, drying corn, fresh turned dirt.
Right after it rains. Oh, yeah.
Yes.
We'll save the manure for some other people. You know, some of the money-making scent.
You get that scent, but you go put it behind your competitors and people that you don't like in their booth.
There you go. I was actually going to ask you. I feel like when we walk into the studio now, it doesn't smell like new studio anymore. It has a fruity, flowery aroma. I don't smell that. You don't smell that?
I smell the new studio still.
I wondered if you, like, placed an air freshener someplace.
My wife was in here. Maybe that was it.
Your wife.
Your shirt. Yeah. You know, your shirt might just make you think you're smelling that.
That's right. There you go.
Cool shirts.
Certainly could be.
Okay. No, we're appreciative of you. Following your nose. That was a great thing to get to meet up with you guys for sure and have a little bit of a conversation there. I'm looking forward to the day for sure.
The nose always knows. Especially your nose. My nose is pretty big. He can smell a lot. I can smell a lot. All right. Introduce yourselves. How about Kristen, you go first. Let us know who you are, what your role is with Ever.ag. And after we do that, we'll jump into what Ever.ag is.
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Kristen Steen. I'm out of Eastern Iowa. We have a location just north of you guys. And so we were out visiting a client in Western Iowa, not Western Nebraska. So we stopped here. I'm a grain marketing advisor. I work with a set of producers and just sitting down and talking through what their operation looks like, what they want their goals to look like.
Yeah.
So I'm Lori Nelson and I live in Marshall, Missouri. So I have a client base in Missouri, client base in Iowa, just through past relationships that I've had and do the same thing as Kristen as we're a team. And we've got another gal, Jenny Berker, that helps us. So we're out on the road today.
So she's in the office today taking care of phone calls for us and taking care of guys that need help today. But do the same thing as managing risk and manage emotions and help them put a marketing plan together for them.
The emotion side of things, as Tanner said it in a previous episode today, that it just seems like it's been a light switch. this summer. All of a sudden, I don't know if we weren't paying attention or what. It's not like it happened overnight, but it feels like it did. It feels like the rug was pulled out from under us.
I recently heard it referred to as the Hall of Shame. Since we're in Ames right now, it's bringing me back to my good old college days. It made me chuckle a little bit, but certainly that's not what we want Hall and Grain to be like, a shameful experience. We want it to be a a pleasant feel of like, woohoo, bring on the money.
But the markets haven't been giving us that here lately, that's for sure.
Yeah, you think if a guy's pulling into the elevator right now or the ethanol plant, he's saying that this was forward contracted.
Yeah, I sold this for five bucks.
That's what he's saying in a coffee shop. That's exactly.
The two loads that were sold at that level, right?
Yes.
Yes. So give us a little background about Ever.ag because I don't think I'd heard about you guys until we actually smelled our way there.
Yeah. It's a conglomeration of a bunch of companies that have been around for a really long time and really had the same visions around Ever. the future of agriculture and everything that needs to be involved with it. And so the division that we're in is primarily in the risk management or the financial services division.
And we work with anybody and everybody from livestock to dairy to grain producers and on the commercial side and helping them hedge whatever their needs are. But we do that on the basis of a technological platform. We take deep pride in the technology that we have to back up the decision making that we're doing. And so a lot of that then extends into the other business units that we have.
One of them could be our agribusiness unit, which if there's ag retailers listening, they may have heard of Fieldalytics. It's a technology platform that basically helps them write prescriptions for farms, invoice those prescriptions, send a tender truck to the proper field, and then record all the data that goes along with spraying and everything else.
The really cool thing about that, though, too, is then it also allows the producer to see, by little square pictures, what their profitability is for those specific acres, right? And by like a three inch by three inch type grid rather than, oh yeah, my overall makes this.
They can really start to dive into the data and the analytics of it all and say, here's the decisions that I need to make for this farm and this is why. We're also in a software division that's more highly detailed towards the dairy industry.
And they do a lot of things from maternity warden things to being able to track the milk that goes from the farm all the way to the retail store and help provide technological solutions for everything in between. So, again, we've. EverAg or their former businesses have been around for 20 plus years.
Here in the last three or four years is really where we've started to combine forces and say, okay, we have a lot of synchronizations that can happen that can really help each and every business unit of the ag industry make better decisions and actually use data rather than just look at it and be overwhelmed by what that is.
And so that's part of what we do with the producer on a one-on-one basis too.
Right. I've, I've said that on, on these episodes before that it's, you may not want to make the decision, but when you have all the information in front of you, the analytics and all that, it's so much easier to make that decision. Even if it's one you don't want to make, because a lot of times it's just like emotion is what we're off of. And that's terrible.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Emotion, pulling that emotion, having a true number to help you make that decision is – I really find a critical piece for guys.
Right. So did you guys both work for – I'm going to call them a legacy company because you said it's a bunch of companies. Did you guys work for one of them before Ever.ag or are you new to Ever.ag after the coming together?
You go ahead. You started first and then I jumped on board and –
Yeah. So Lori and I actually started working together for a large multinational grain company, buying grain into our individual, what do I want to say, locations. And we really got to know each other there. And then another coworker of that organization tapped on us and said, hey, you got to come. At the time, it was commodity risk management group and said, hey, what these
What these guys are doing in helping farmers actually get grain sold and actually manage this thing holistically is a real thing. And so that's when we jumped on. So to answer your question, yeah, it was a legacy thing that we started with. So I jumped on. Lori decided she wanted to move to Missouri for some reason. I don't quite understand that, but that's just the northerner in me.
It's better than Nebraska.
But when she did, it was like, hey, you should start at Missouri. Like, farmers are great down there, too. I'm sure they need just as much help as the rest of us do. Start at Missouri.
And she's like, no, I'm okay. I was like, no, whether it's a capital, no. I'm not pulling on another farmer's place that I don't know their name.
Especially in Missouri.
You just never know. Here we go. I drove out the driveway seven years ago. Hi, I'm Lori Nelson. Farmers market their grain and grown a business there. It's been a really good trip. Really good business.
Our listeners have heard from commodity brokers on our podcast. They've heard from those that specialize in using hedges. They've heard from those that specialize in using volume and buying groups. And we've presented market commentary conversations probably five or six times over the last five years. But this episode is going to be different because it's a different environment that we're in
And what you've said is risk management over and over, and you talk about how you're going to help farmers market their grain. Our listeners most recently have heard an episode about a, I'm going to call it a master's type class, a master's level on grain merchandising. Now, in that episode, they didn't get the class curriculum.
They got access to the individuals and the importance as to why that needs to be instrumental in some of our listeners' operations. So let's talk about how you guys, over the last couple of years, have been helping your clients successfully market their grain.
It's a very individualized plan for each producer for what bushels need to go to town in the fall, what bushels can be put in a bin. First of all, we start with your cash flow, a break-even plan. A true solid break even as we talk about removing some of that emotion where it becomes a number. And so then when we start looking at numbers that are above your break even, let's be selling some grain.
Okay, that's a piece of it. Last several years, we haven't had much carry in the market. Part of the merchandising piece of having your on-farm storage being created, treating it like an elevator is capturing that futures carry. and then looking for a basis to set is another piece of it.
When we go to place targets, it's not something of here's a list that you have to have placed by five o'clock today. We got a limited power of attorney that says, okay, we're placing these targets on your behalf to put those orders in place. So as you guys get in the field, you know you've got targets working. What else do we do, Kristen?
So the other piece of that then, so Lori's touched a lot on the cash piece of that and the merchandising piece of that. And you talked about how you've had commodity brokers on here, you've had merchants, you've had advisors, that type of thing. And basically what we look to do is help guys bring that into a market picture. So the other side of it is, to your point, the risk management side.
the making sure that if we're not selling grain, we have some sort of hedge on it in case the bottom falls like it has, right? And so it's basically taking your cash market and your gold market and marrying those two together and giving you this picture of what is my risk on the farm? What are my profit goals on the farm and what's the plan to achieve it? But the key to that, right, because
Oftentimes, guys are really good at saying, yeah, if I get $5, I'm happy to sell. But then it comes back to the execution side. And did we actually do that when the market gave us that opportunity? And there's an array of different reasons that the answer to that is no, but that's the part that really draws guys to it.
Because we help them in the execution side, whether it's because of emotion or because of busyness or all the work Something else in everything, right? That's something that we specialize in helping them. Now's the time to pull the trigger. Let's go ahead and make that happen.
And sometimes there are several people involved in an operation that just need help coming together to form a decision.
How crucial is it? You guys said you're both former grain buyers, right? How crucial is that? Because that was your job was to get grain bought the cheapest. Right, for your company, from the farmers. I knew you were going with that. But now you know that side of things. That's got to be a big advantage, right, working on the other side trying to help farmers now?
So it's an advantage and a big way to understand how things are merchandised and what the business movements look like. So what I mean by that, any buying company, Any company that's buying a farmer's grain isn't necessarily interested in, oh, it's $3 corn, I'm going to make money here if I buy a $3.50.
Because they're also, their bigger play, the way that if it's an elevator, the way that they make money is by mixing and blending. They make money by shrink, by capturing carry in the market, so the difference between your December futures, your March futures, so on and so forth, and by basis improvement. Right. And so the farmer nowadays is really set up to do that themselves.
But the hedging piece of that is what's been missing. Right. And so when we say that huge advantage, absolutely, because we truly understand it. It seems it seems like for a long time there's been a huge gap. Either, you know, the future.
market really well or you know the basis market really well and it's a matter of both of them matter to the price that I'm getting and when I'm calling that grain and what that looks like for my cash flow so I'm not paying nine percent interest and the list could go on right and so it's truly understanding how do I need so that I can actually capture carry so I can get a return on my grain bins that I that I put a good amount of money into and
rather than just treating them like a wishing well. And I'm going to put it in there and hope that it turns out something at some point, right? This is more that methodical approach. A merchandiser is one that's going to say, I'm going to buy, even if it's at $5 a form, this is the basis level that I bought it, and I'm going to turn it into X by holding it for a certain period of time.
So that's what we're looking to help guys truly understand when they're working that piece of it.
Yeah, when you did your grain facility upgrade, you put in the ability to blend. Yeah. To be able to blend off and try to capture some of the value of, you know, maybe you got delayed in harvest or you went a little bit earlier.
I can tell you it paid off right away because we put that big Sukup 100,000 bushel bin in. And they were still working on it when we started filling it. Our goal was we didn't have a spreader in there. So naturally, when you dump into a bin, you have a cone. and your fines don't travel down like your grain does, and they stay all in the center.
Well, you can imagine, in a 100,000-bushel bin, you have a lot of fines. Yep. Right in that middle. And you start pulling out of that, you're going to have a lot of... Dock. Yeah, a lot of dock, foreign material, whatever, fines in there. And we started getting that.
Our goal was to pull the core out of that as we filled it, so we could actually use that, but we didn't have that part of it set up yet. So we ended up having to blend those first, like, 10, 15, 20 loads off just so we didn't get above 5% foreign material in there that we were getting docked for. And boom, that part of it paid for itself right away.
If we would have just all taken it to town, we would have been much better off than putting it in the bin last fall. But that's just another story.
Not necessarily, right? This is the part where I'll challenge you a bit on that because this pasture there actually was carry. We had a decent carry out for numbers and informers. we had massive interest increases, right? And so the cost to carry got to be a lot more. And had those bushels been priced ahead of time off of the December, you could have then rolled it to the March for 18 cents.
And then rather than delivering for, I'm just using my local area. If I would have delivered locally, it probably would have been a 40 under basis. Now all of a sudden you think the ethanol plant and maybe getting a 10 over instead. So there's $0.50 in basis improvement. There's another $0.18 in futures carry plus the mixing and blending that you made on top of that.
And that's where the true money for that growing and storage comes into play.
And I think a farmer thinks about I'm going to capture carry. I'm going to wait until July to stop it. No, no, no, no, no. Not how we want to manage
carry so it's an education piece that we spend a lot of time with producers our client base talking about yeah you don't actually capture it until you sell it bingo right a profit isn't a profit until you actually sell it yeah right so you mentioned identifying the risks on a farm if you approach one of our listeners first time meeting them what is the step to identifying risk because if we're going to manage it we have to know what it is sure
how big a piece of paper do you have to listen to? I'm good. Let's go. You know, it's not a local market anymore. It's not a county market, a state market, a U S market. It's a world market. And as things come into play, unforeseen events, you know, that's where the market changes. And are we prepared for that? And if that's an option strategy, that we help folks manage that.
That's another piece of how we help producers.
So to dig a little deeper into that, right? We go back to that cost of production to truly understand what are we dealing with when it comes to the specific producer? Are we dealing with super tight margins because we're just getting started and land rent is X? Or are we dealing with a guy that's about to retire, has a really good land base, and so on and so forth?
And so we truly want to understand what their financial portfolio looks like. But the bigger piece of that is then how do we protect that? And what I always think that too is, I don't know, do you guys have much damage
ago during the derecho yeah about a hundred percent we were yeah right in it so um or we were just i live um just west of sea rapids we were in the heat of that as well and i was incredibly grateful for the insurance policy that we had right never in a million years did i think we'd actually claim on that um never in a But it's one of those things that I'm happy that it's there when it happens.
And so I challenge guys with that in saying that my home is a huge asset and I insure all of that. I don't just insure the kitchen. I don't just insure my bedroom, right? The whole thing is insured. And we farm as well, my husband and I do. Our corn asset, the value of our corn and beans is a larger asset than the value of our home. Right. A net value.
And so often guys will look at that and just be like, oh, it's OK. Like, sure, we have crop insurance that helps in case there's a crop failure. But we don't step in and say, what type of price protection do I have? Because more often than not, even in the years where we see prices climbing, there's still that step back from fall in prices, right?
So you typically see that market start to rally in the spring to summertime, and then you see it fall out of bed. So in the years that we know, the probability is pretty darn high that the market's going to fall out of bed or that there'd be a claim, and we're not coming in and helping protect against that. It's like, what are we doing here? Why aren't we protecting ourselves?
Or another way to put, we had a guy that came on to Ever Egg a few years ago and he used to help large commercial businesses down in South America hedge their purchases. And the comment that stuck out to me was, you know, when we're working with these guys, if they spend a day one bushel goes unhedged.
It doesn't have to be completely bought with futures, but if it doesn't have calls on or something along those lines, if they go one day without everything being hedged, they lose their job. And these are multinational, multimillion dollar businesses that take it that seriously. And this is where my passion really starts to come out because I grew up on the farm. I farmed myself.
I mean, my whole life has been agriculture and I want to see that continue on. Right. I want to see healthy family farms continue on. But one of the biggest issues that we have is that we continue to act like it's not a business. Right. We continue to just say, well, we'll see how the crow flies and. And you know what? If God blesses us, he blesses us.
And it's like, yes, but God's also giving you these awesome opportunities and these tools ahead of you. It's time to take advantage of them, right? And it's time to start treating your family farm like a business so that it can do what you guys say, right? How does it go? A farm without profits is not a farm or something along those lines.
Won't be farming for long. Yeah, if you're not farming for profit, won't be farming for long.
And you mentioned this morning in our meeting. And it was around what other business gets the opportunity to protect a price. Yeah.
Yeah. Very well said. Often, we're guilty. All of us are guilty.
being in this Corby mentality especially when you look at what the markets have done the past two months or three months or you know it's been this downhill slide and that's what we want to keep our eyes focused on is the opportunities ahead of us are still there and it's time to really stay focused on what's the next right move right so how do you identify if we want to go with the philosophy that every bushel is going to be hedged like these major companies and
How do you identify how many bushels you have before the crop gets harvested? Yes.
I mean, so you all have a 10-year average, right, with crop insurance. And no, we don't know whether or not you're going to have a derecho or whether you're going to have a proper crop because the rains kept coming in the month of August, right? But at the end of the day, you have at least the history from before to give an indicator of what's likely going forward.
And that's all you can do with that. So we'll typically start the beginning of the year and take just your acres, what you're planning on planting, times your age, and that's the bushels that you need to at least start considering. And then as the years go on, this year was the perfect one. I had some guys down south that had to switch over to beans.
They just kept on having the issue of getting the corn in the ground, and so they had to naturally switch. And so we just adjusted that plan as it happened, right? Then all of a sudden... I mean, they had some corn sales on and they're still able to make good on those. They had extra puts on after they learned that they weren't going to have it near as many acres.
And so we sold those puts and invested them into the bean strategy that they were going to have now that they changed that up. So there's a lot of flexibility that goes in with this. But you can't say, well, I don't know what the future looks like. So I'm just going to sit here. Right. Because it's that inactivity that really matters.
starts to kill a plant more than anything that was me this summer felt like i just uh put my head in sand that was that was the uh the plan i guess i mean i had uh planting was actually probably my worst because we had such a just long drawn out planting season and when i get in that mode like i maybe look at the markets once a day maybe every couple days type of deal like i got a job to do right like what's it matter what the market's moving i can't
do anything about it now. I had targets in that a couple of them hit and a couple of them just missed. And if that would have got to the just missed, I would have feel like I'm in a much better position than I am now. But I think a lot of people probably had that $5 target in their mind and didn't quite get there in that little run.
I even had offers for 25 and 26 that missed by 3 cents and
that, you know, just now just look, just sickening when you look back. Did you have them on a zero? Trying to think if it was 25 or 26. It was at like 518, I feel like. And we were like, I mean, we got there so many times. It just kept bouncing off. I was like, it's got to get there, you know, and I put them in early. But, man, that sucked.
So if someone wants to work with you guys, like do you guys offer – multiple levels or is it just all, all one? I mean, I know you mentioned the power of attorney or, so that's more like a white glove treatment to me. Yeah. Right. How does that work?
Yeah. So, um, we have, if a guy wants to just work with us on a brokerage space, they're more than welcome to. Um, what I tend to notice is then they become more headulators, right. And we're just, we're just playing around with it. And so I really encourage guys, especially if they're struggling in the marketing department, to go with the white glove service. We call it foundations.
And so those would technically be our two levels. But the white glove service, we also have over a 90% retention rate year over year. Even when you look at the past few years where a monkey can market green and make money.
they still stick with us because it's, we are helping them with every detail from the beginning, all the way through to delivery and Hey, the settlement was off and here's how we can help make it right with the buyer and, and all that good stuff.
So, so yeah, it's one of those things where, um, one of the greatest compliments we get, and it stood out to me when you were talking about some of those offers that almost filled, but you're also doing a different job and look at it so often, right. So many guys that are trying to market it on their own, they're constantly fretting over what the market's doing, right?
The thing that I love about this is when they get into this and they've been doing it for a couple of years and all of a sudden they're like, I don't worry about it anymore, right?
Because the piece of it, you've got targets working and we want to capture those higher markets, but we also have that thinking net known as our foot that sits there and says, if those targets don't sell, we're still okay. We still have peace in that if the market falls out of bed, we've got that backdrop saying it's all right.
We're not making money like we would if it would have just been a straight future sale. But in the meantime, it's a heck of a lot better than having 390 corn and just being completely naked to that as well.
That's hard, though. Because I still remember the feeling that I had when Corey suggested I needed to turn over the editing of this podcast to somebody else. And that was my baby, right? I had control. I knew exactly where I was going to cut, what I was going to take out, what part I wanted to use at the beginning of the podcast.
That's the same feeling, Corey, that farmers have got to have with, no, I want to have control. All right.
You're still the president of your company.
So imagine you still having the control and you still saying, this is the tweak that I would make, but somebody's still doing the actual editing for you. That's all this is, right? The key is that it's limited, one being to corn and soybeans and selling that grain. I can't go off and change your medical records or anything like that.
But the other piece of that is in the contract that we write up, we cannot do anything without talking to you first.
So an example... is how many bushels do you want to sell? Where do you want to sell to? Talk about the target price. And once we get that arranged, then we take that information and place it for you, and you can check your mark. Okay. They have that for you, and away you go on to your next event.
Right.
I think one of the concerns too, you said giving up power, but I remember seeing on the socials, so obviously we're in a down market, or it feels like a down market now, we've lost a lot, but when it was going the other way, going up, there was a large grain buyer, I'm not going to mention their name, no free ads for that, but they had a program that, I remember corn was like $6.50 to $7, and a lot of people were pissed because they were hauling in $4.25, $4.50,
corn based on that so there's always that fear too of giving up the control that you missed out yeah yeah and that's the piece that it goes back to you want to have that inability about the market and that's where options go into place right so we've talked a lot about if you don't have anything sold you or very little sold you want to make sure you have downside protected on the flip side the same can be said if you're an extremely aggressive seller
your risk is if the market takes off and all of a sudden you're missing out on the opportunities and your landlord sits there and is asking for more money. The fertilizer company is asking for more money. Like everybody is asking for more money and you're like, I sold $4 corn. What do I do with this?
Yeah.
Right. And that's where the call piece comes into play. And so a lot of this is just that continual, this is what you look like as a whole, right? If you think of a pie graph, that's what we like to play it as. So if, If you're 20% sold, we need to have another 80% protected somehow. But on the flip side, if you're 80% sold, we need to understand that there is a risk that
All of a sudden we go through a derecho and China sits there and acts like it's Black Friday and decides to buy it all. And there's a risk of inflation, so the funds step in and buy everything too, right? So you want to have some sort of call strategy associated to that too. So it's just a matter of truly understanding where you sit as a whole and adjusting it appropriately in the meantime.
Because one $4 sale isn't going to kill you, but if everything's sold there and then things turn on you, because let's face it, nobody knows where the markets are going to go. If they tell you you do, you need to run because they're selling snake oil. And so it's more about having that humility to say, I'm not sure which way this is going to go.
This is how I'm currently positioned, and this is how I'm going to be flexible with whatever the market does give me.
Well, Corey, we had Todd Dale on here from Estes Concaves to talk to us about getting our combine set for wheat harvest, small grains. Yep. Let's do the same thing for soybeans.
Soybeans are tough. I mean, it's one of the toughest crops to set a combine for. So we've got a lot of our customers, it seems like, that have seed beans. And if you don't know anything about growing seed beans, if the quality is not good, it's just a normal bean. You lose your premium by not having a good quality soybean to sell. So the last few years have been tough.
Like I said, a lot of green stems, a lot of green beans. And we've gotten away with running settings of three or four and even all the way up to 800 on a rotor speed. And that's, in essence, going back to the wheat stuff, that's tighter and almost as fast as what we do in the wheat. But it still turns out a good bean. It's not cracking and splitting and breaking beans.
And it's able to handle that tougher residue. So the key there is when I'm saying tighter and faster is there's a limit for every combine and whatever your calibrations are set to. I mean, if it's to the point where that's just demolishing and making the beans into bean meal, that's not going to work. A good suggestion I always like to tell folks is find the cracking point of your grain.
Find the point where the rotor speed and the concave clearance does do too much damage and then start working it back from there in these tough conditions.
If our listeners want to learn more about the XPR3s and what you guys have in store, how best do they look you up?
Just probably Google Estes Concaves. I mean, it's going to be – it'll pop up in everything. Our website's estesperformanceconcaves.com. All the information that you should – I mean, a lot of – that you'd need to – Get started on the investigation process if it's something you want to move forward with, and then give one of us a call. We've got phone numbers listed on there.
We'd be happy to talk with you.
Awesome. Well, thank you much for your time.
Yeah, because if I would have hit that 518 sale for 26 or whatever it was, I'm not buying my inputs for that. I'm not buying my seed, my anhydrous or UAN and fertilizer. Like, something could happen. We could have World War III next year, and the markets go to $8, and then all the fertilizer guys want it, and then all of a sudden that's a non-profitable
position so someone's got to be thinking about that and so you guys are helping with that is that are you guys like meeting individually with each farmer then on a weekly monthly how does how does that look so we typically meet with guys one to two times a year and that's our big planning session but we're talking with them on the phone quite a bit
We also just started up a webinar for guys. So once a week they can see the charts that we're looking at. Right. Because it's it's one thing for me to say, oh, yeah, we have a massive carry out on. But when I actually show them the history, what that looks like, they're like, holy smokes. Yeah, we've got an issue. Right. I can see this wall of green coming and I need to get ahead of that.
And it that pocket that recording also helps with as you're going through your calls every day. So we're just not repeating yourself and we're remembering to tell every producer what's going on. So that's been really helpful to us, too.
So to answer your question, yes, it is. It is talking to everybody individually, but they also get that bigger picture from our company as well.
And there's some guys that want more touch points.
more phone calls per month some guys are like call me once a month i just leave me alone yeah that'd be poor cory's pretty needy he'd be wanting he wants to wake up call every morning yeah good morning sunshine yeah here's what the markets are doing good morning the markets are down again have a good day yep so are you using any special tools when you're analyzing these charts is there is there things that
a regular producer doesn't have access to, or is it the standard and you're relying on your experience and understanding?
You know, you look at the retracement levels, Fibonacci retracements, those type of things, and does a producer want to look at that every day? Do they have access to that every day? So we take a look at that from a technical point of view. All the technicals involved is what's helpful to help us look at those targets and where they need to be placed.
And the cool thing is, is everybody can look up and see, okay, where's my Fibonacci retracement level at? Or are we, is the RSI showing that we're oversold or overbought or anything like that? But honestly, what we're trying to do is take all the technical information or the ones that are pertinent at the time. Same thing with fundamentals, right? Geopolitical or geopolitics, massive supplies,
And I would say the renewable fuel source are some of the really big, hot topics, fundamentally, what's going on. But there's always a massive amount of things going on. So we're just trying to funnel that all in and give them that big picture of, hey, here's what you need to consider. Here's what we think the risks and opportunities are. Here's what we think you should do.
And then it's the dialogue back and forth. What do you want to do with that? Sometimes they're, oftentimes they're like, yep, go ahead. I agree. We need to get that done. Every now and then it's, I don't want to do anything. And so we might have to challenge you a little bit harder about that. But to answer your initial question,
Everybody has, I mean, with internet now, everybody has the ability to have full-blown knowledge as to what's going on throughout the United States, throughout South America. They have the ability to learn technicals on how to read them and also access them themselves. It's just a matter of what you want to be doing with your time, right?
And so all the tools that we use, they're very simple in terms in theory and in concept, right? It's not this too shiny thing that's just coming around, but it's all about the discipline of actually using it and holding you guys' feet to the fire and actually executing on the information that you're given.
Have you got into any of the new tech, though, on, like, AI and things like that?
I think they're fiddling with it, right? We've got tech guys who are a little bit smarter than I am. I mean, she's a tech genius. She's my IT person for sure. They're working with, but again, a lot of even the AI stuff is just back to the basics of where's going to be the tip of this, right? And continually adjusting that. But at the end of the day, right?
You guys are talking about the control factor and do we really want to give all our control over at once? Or do we want to slowly test the waters and see, okay, here's the next step to go
into algorithms you can't control those right and and you made a good point there i wonder if anybody has tried turning the grain markets off and turning it back on just to see if it would reset it you know kind of like the whole like america needs a break have you tried unplugging and replugging yes yes same concept right okay so for the last couple of minutes that we have together if we've got a listener that is like cory and feels undersold
What are you going to do with them when they come on board? How's that look?
Yeah. First step is to get the understanding as to how undersold they are. Are you still sitting on 23 crop in the bin that we need to get rid of before fall? And really take a deep dive into what to do with that rather than... kicking the can down the road longer. The next step is determining what your harvest needs are and really get a plan for that.
Oftentimes for unsold bushels, we'll just look at pricing those bushels and having a call should we see a little bit of upside going forward, right? Giving them the courage to actually sell those bushels. And then from there, it's going to be more of a post-harvest meeting. Then saying, let's start focusing on next year and we can continue to work through this 24 crop.
Take a hard look so that we don't take the failures of this year's marketing plan and habitually recreate that problem over and over again. So many successful, like on the way up, I was listening to a podcast and they talked about the successful people failed all the speaking time. They just made sure that they don't do it over and over again. right?
And so it's a matter of, all right, let's take a fresh look, let's sit down, let's go through all the paperwork that's needed, but then let's really start with that cost of production and dive into those numbers for you and then start putting that plan together by way of targets and what type of option strategies you need on there and what does that actually look like?
Because a lot of it's more of an educational experience than anything.
And when we do that, it's kind of a a breath of fresh air for folks. Yeah. It's not all on me. Yeah.
How much further down do we got? I mean, there's, it's down every day. I mean, there's no stopping it right now. Is, is the USDA right? Do we just have a glut of corn coming in and beans for sure?
I'm really concerned about basis because I mean, it's starting to, we've seen that weekend up already of the hall of shame that's happening right now. But I really think that the closer we get to harvest, the worse that's going to get, especially since we have a big crop that's coming into us as well.
And when we talk to bankers, they're like, yeah, we've got green notes out there wondering what they're going to haul. When we talk to elevators, because we have great relationships with buyers as well, they're like, Our commercial storage program is currently packed, right? And that's going into harvest. They can only have so much commercial storage. So at some point, something's got to give.
Maybe it's by the time this podcast comes out that that's actually happening. The good news is, is the funds are really short this market, right? They have a lot of sold futures positions on this thing.
So if they decide you know what we need to lighten that up or we want to take some profits out of there that might create some buying but the the old saying goes Bulls need fed every day bears hibernate right they can hibernate for a long time So if you're truly there you can sit there and have that staying there But then it's just a matter of how much producer selling goes along with it
And so the big thing that we're going to be watching is what type of exports can we find? That's been a lackluster due to the fact that we're not competitive. Now that the value of the U.S. dollar has fallen a little bit, we're looking a lot more attractive. So hopefully as we start hitting those harvest periods, we'll be able to see that come back. But as of right now, we have, what, 93 corn?
I really... I think we've got at least another 25 to 30 cents in this thing. Maybe if it gets overdone a little bit from that, but I still think there's some more pressure to be had with this market.
And beans, we actually export two thirds of beans here in the fall and we don't have anything near that kind of lineup. So I would say 50 cents possibly in the next 60 days as we approach Harvest on beans to see another 50 cents possibly taken out of the bean market.
Again, we've got to timestamp this because now they're making this for 50 cents. It's August 16th.
New crop beans are at 957. Who are they going to believe, you saying it's August 16th or me saying it's September 7th? I don't know. So you could potentially, yeah, we could be in the eights on the beans.
Cash, after you take basis out of there. There's still risk to the downside. You do start to attract more buyers at these levels. Buyers will finally repeat, right? A healthy market encourages both sellers and buyers throughout the year. And for the past three, four years, They have been like, this is killing me.
Come on, let's think of like your livestock feeders and your dairies and those type of guys, right? Feeding $6, $7 corn is not a fun endeavor. And so they're like, woohoo, $4 corn, here we go. And so that's where they're starting to look at placing some hedges that way.
I imagine, yeah, the cattle buyer, I mean, they've been making a little bit of money this year on the cattle market side of things. And now they got cheap feed, too. Yeah. It all depends.
We work on the livestock side too, not lowering that specifically, but that's something that they have to keep in mind, right? Lock in the profits. It's not locked in until you lock it in.
Right. I was going to say, if you're growing your own feed, it's not the same. If you can go buy your own feed, you take advantage of a lower market like this.
Yeah.
Well, I hate to wrap it up as quickly as we are, but you've provided a lot of good insights. And you've provided a clear path as to how folks can do something. That's the plan, right? Inactivity is still a choice, and it's not the right choice right now. We want to do something. So I'm going to try and summarize a little bit about what we talk about.
But I want you both – we try to put a question together for every one of our guests to compile what the answers look like. And the one that you guys get to answer in this episode is – How do you juggle work and personal life?
We want to provide a compilation for our listeners to understand that they're not alone in the way they feel and others either do it well or don't do it well right alongside them. So think about your answer for how do you juggle work and personal life. I'm going to try and summarize. We had the ladies here from ever.ag. And it's an awesome organization that has a lot of different services.
But what we were talking about today was risk management. We're working this fall to put episodes together that are really going to provide you with the tools and the resources to make your farm the best that it can be in a time that might not be the best it's ever been. We look at how working with some risk management group is great and even better when you can have an individualized plan.
And that's what's being offered now. knowing what your break-evens are, making sure that you understand what your cash flow needs are. I think we've probably said that a dozen times. And it's important that that doesn't go unrepeated because it's something that you need to continue to focus on. Large corporations hedge every bushel.
So why don't you as a farmer have protections in place for your entire operation? I love the analogy about insuring your house. You don't just insure the bathroom. We insure the whole house. So Make sure you've got a plan in there. Inactivity kills operations. We need to build the foundation to remove the worry.
There are opportunities when you work with folks like these ladies that you can get ongoing information, whether it be through alerts or weekly webinars or touch points, like Corey wants a wake-up call every morning, to be able to put that together. But ultimately, have a plan and have a partner that you can trust, and you still remain in the driver's seat
but hopefully you get a little more sleep at night. Cover it. Nice. Good. All right, ladies. I like it. Yes. I can keep my job. That's good. My podcast sales here, you know, everything's just kind of ensure the downside risk on the podcast. Yeah. All right. So how do we manage personal and work life?
I'll go first. Um, Asking for help. I think about our working relationship through pregnancies, giving birth, durations. Yeah, that's the final end. But I think about what happened when it was Russia invaded Ukraine the day you gave birth to your third. And what a ride that was. And asking for help and partner up with someone that can help you make decisions. when you can.
That's a good one. I would follow that up with just recognizing that life is about seasons, especially when it comes to farming. Obviously, you're not going to have complete life balance in the middle of fall when the crop has to get harvested. But then at the same time, like there are slower seasons that you can truly enjoy everything.
So I really try to look at my busy seasons and and I plan everything out on a week by week basis. But then I also try to take into consideration what type of season is it and what does it take to be healthy physically, mentally, emotionally, relationally, and then just go out and do the things in the meantime. So just recognizing their seasons to everything.
i like that one too that is good that is good that's i feel like that's what we're doing right now is uh we are batching ahead of harvest because we know that when busy season comes up we still want that family time even though it might come at weird hours and weird stretches for sure uh still still doing our best about farming is
It's so fun to have family involved in that. So you can have a little bit of both. But to your point, batching is a big deal that way.
Very much. That's good.
I've got a funny story.
Go ahead.
The heat of harvest, and I was talking to a producer, and we had to just quickly get
business taken care of and we're saying goodbye and he's like love you i'm like wait a minute um i'm tired oh that cory doesn't use that excuse don't forget to tell those you love yeah i'm pretty sure i said that to my brother-in-law one time during harvest like oh what did i just say that's how you end every one of our phone calls and he'll never forget that about you oh my gosh yeah that's always that's funny stuff but
If people want to work with ever.ag or dip their toe in, what's the best way to kind of get an entry-level experience and kind of see what it's all about?
I'd encourage you to go to our YouTube channel, ever.ag, and feel us around there. But we'll also send you guys the information, Lori and I's contact info, and just search ever.ag on the website.
tubes on the socials everywhere so and and our website's right there too via google so feel free to reach out that way like i said we'll we'll give you our information to post in a link below and and go that way too perfect perfect well i'm excited i'm gonna definitely check it out and heck free popcorn at trade shows that's right are you coming you're coming back to iowa right You bet.
We'll be at the Farm Progress Show. Oh, well, it'll already be happening. Sorry. We'll see you guys then. But yeah, we'll be at the Iowa Expo and all that good stuff too.
Good. We'll come and make sure we get popcorn.
Make sure to put the butter and perfume on this go-round.
Yes. Popcorn at the beginning, in the middle, any end of our day. You guys need to come out.
Do you have any clients in Nebraska?
We've got a handful.
You need to come out to Husker Harvest. We'll be there in a week or so.
Yeah, that'll be good. That's right. And Lord knows, Nebraskans need all the help they can get. I don't know.
I think this year they have been blessed, besides the ones that got the hail and all that. But, man, there's some guys that didn't turn the pivots on until, like, mid-July. Yeah.
You could tell even on those end rows it was looking pretty good.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Awesome. Well, thank you. It's been our pleasure to finally connect here after meeting you ladies at Iowa Ag Expo. And we do look forward to connecting with you last week at the Farm Progress Show.
Yeah, yeah.
And all the other times that we get to connect, knowing that you guys are only going to be a couple miles away from us every once in a while. So. Thank you so much for doing that. Listeners, we also thank you for tuning into the podcast. Hopefully you found some value in this. And if you did, let us know what it was or if you want more clarity on some of the portions that we talked about today.
So, Corey, I think that's about it. Yeah. Have a good one. Have a good one.
Remember, if you aren't farming for profit, you won't be farming for long.