Are the harvest lows in already? Weekly market outlook: Sept. 9-13th

Chris: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. Today you have Chris Barron and Ryan Moe with StoneX, gonna talk markets for the week of September 9th through the 13th. So, uh, excited to welcome you here to the conversation. Ryan, how's it going?

Ryan

Moe: It's going pretty okay, pretty all right, actually, Chris. So things are going well. How about yourself?

Chris: Hanging in there. You know, as we go into this new week and look back at last week, we saw some strength during that week and a lot of people saying, oh, it looks like maybe the harvest low is in. So what does Ryan Moe think?

Ryan

Moe: We, we, it's, it's, it is a tough call. And one thing that has to be totally recognized and appreciated is that there were none of the traditional merchandising moments that created movement this last crop year in corn and soybeans. You know, you hit the rent payment there in February or March. Typically farmers would have to sell some crop to, you know, get money for those payments. When springtime hit, typically there's some costs that need to be covered, and so farmers would move bushels at those points. You know, then there's other times in the year where farmers would traditionally sell, and none of those traditional markers of, you know, merchandising happened this last year. And so to sit there and say that, well, we're going to behave in terms of normal, or I guess whatever you want to determine normal to be, is this, you know, nobody knows what that actually means anymore.

It's all kind of gone out the window. And I think the commercial grain industry is really having a hard time understanding what that means for them and for the future of their business. And, you know, as we've gone through and dissected this with lots of our customers here in the last few weeks as they wrapped up their marketing year that ended August 31st, we kind of just asked them, you know, what's— why is this so different now? What's changed here in the last 10 years? And, you know, the commercial grain industry is still grappling with the amount of on-farm storage that started getting built after the big run in prices in 2012 and then in 2013, and the amount of bins that were built and the amount of trucks that farmers bought that made a lot of them mini commercials, for lack of a better term. And so that really changed the game from a merchandising standpoint.

And so to look to see if harvest lows are in, credit to everybody's friend Joe Vaklovic. He did a really, really good job of calling some of these lows based upon the expiration of basis contracts as contracts would come up and expire and how the funds would behave into those periods where they knew a bunch of bushels were going to come out of the farmer's hands and into the commercial's hands and into the end user's hands. And those correlated pretty well with the expiration of the May contract, the July contract, and then here the SEP contract. So I think if you, if you want to look at the amount of corn that had to move, especially in the eastern Corn Belt, August 31st, maybe because the system might have what it needs to be full for now.

But if the farmers hold off the way that they have been for the last several months, the board's going to need to do some work to get bushels moving again after these bushels that have just most recently been put into the system is cleared. Mm-hmm. So that's a really long and complicated answer of me saying I don't know. But if the farmers hold the grain off the way that they have, it's, it's possible that we could be seeing harvest lows. And, and hardly any combines have rolled yet.

Chris: Yeah, it's going to be interesting because I think when, when machines do get rolling, now all of a sudden there's a whole other element to, to consider. And we'll stay with corn here first. But is the idea of, you know, depending on what that, that flat price does, is there going to be any impact on basis? Not only with what the flat price is doing, but what is the flow of the grain doing? And then what is it geographically too? Because, you know, there's— you don't have to look too far, like in my area, and, and where I'm at is in— if you look at last year's drought map, we're we're right in that hole where there was not as much corn. Conversely, you go to like North Dakota, some other parts of Illinois, Indiana, and some places where the crops were significantly better last year, there, there's still a lot of old inventory.

Whereas like in my, my neck of the woods, the inventory, the old crop inventory is pretty, pretty well cleaned out. There's still some, but that basis is something I think that we need to be aware of and kind of want to get your take on what producers need to be thinking about in managing basis, you know, when— and it's very geographic, I get that. And so, you know, what are some of the things depending on where the producer's at that they need to be thinking about as they manage basis? And then I've got some follow-up stuff here too, but we'll start there.

Ryan

Moe: Yeah, so then I'll ask you to get out your crystal ball for harvest weather and ask the question, are we going to have a fast harvest or a slow harvest? If we have a fast harvest and corn and soybeans are dry, farmers are going to go and they're going to go hard. And that's likely going to force the hand of a lot of commercials who are going to be sitting with only so many bushels of capacity. And if we have a fast harvest to where they have to start getting pretty aggressive on their harvest policy and start, and, you know, maybe some geographies they can force farmers to sell right off the combine. Or if they want to dump at their facility, they're gonna, you know, because they're full, they're gonna need to get ownership of it so that they can move it. In those areas, yeah, you can see basis getting real, real nasty, right?

If harvest all comes at once, because I don't know, is there a state law anywhere that says that everybody has to be done combining by the 31st of October. I mean, I don't know if there is one, but apparently there is.

Chris: There's a desire.

Ryan

Moe: That's why, yeah, that's why, that's why, you know, so many farmers have an X9 combine for 400 acres of corn, right? I mean, so that's, you know, we laugh, but I'm probably more right than wrong in a lot of circumstances.

Chris: But it's one of these things that could be the bottleneck this year is what you're saying, right?

Ryan

Moe: Right. Well, I'm just saying, because if you're in an area where your harvest policies and the commercial can get away with it, where they force you to sell, basis could get really gnarly. And then there's going to be a lot of— there's going to be a lot of tears over that. We have a harvest that just lasts for a really long time due to inclement weather, which is just drought or not drought, which is way too much wet weather. Then, yeah, because you've got your ethanol plants, they're grinding every day. You've got hogs and cattle and chickens that are eating every day, you know, then you've got that demand that chips away at that and go— and, and demand takes care of a lot. So if you have a 12-week harvest period, that's 12 weeks worth of demand where a lot of corn and soybeans disappears during that period.

And then you're sitting in an entirely different basis scenario to where there's going to be facilities that are going to need bushels pointed at them. Very regularly. So two very different scenarios based upon weather. My bet right now would be that we are going to have a nice dry, cool harvest, and this corn is going to come off fast, which puts us in a pretty ugly basis scenario.

Chris: And maybe an average, but wouldn't you say that, you know, it always seems like when you have a lot of bushels to deal with, that slows the process down a little bit too, though, because we're going to be I know, like, in our operation, we're probably going to have 50 bushel more yield on average per acre than we did last year. We averaged like 190. This year it could be easily, you know, 240. And that's probably being conservative. We harvested a lot faster when we were combining 190 bushel corn than 240. But there's a lot of areas that are going to, going to be, you know, harvesting big yields relative for their areas, I guess. I don't know. You think it's going to— it could be fast though, huh?

Ryan

Moe: Yeah, because I mean, your dump times— I mean, lots of commercials have invested in speed and space, right? So yeah, it's going to— it's going to take more—

Chris: well, everybody loads up with their trucks off the farm. So everybody shows up.

Ryan

Moe: Yeah, but they're— yeah, it's kind of surprising. Like in northwest Iowa, some of the customers that I work with up there, I mean, the investments they've made, I mean, they're talking 11 minutes in and out. Yeah. You know, I mean, and that doesn't matter if you're throwing 2 trucks an hour at it or 4, right? I mean, they can— from your farm particularly. I mean, so it— I mean, should we stress that system this year? Yeah. But I think you're gonna have some grain merchandisers in some commercial areas that are gonna say, yeah, see, look, I mean, the investment's worth it. You also have to realize that some of these places that have limited, uh, like some end users that have limited storage space, I mean, what happens if they're filled up with first week of harvest?

Chris: Well, what do we do? That's just it too. So my, that, that's my next question is if, if producers are, um, getting rolling with harvest and get the system up and running and stuff, shouldn't they be hauling any of the bushels like ASAP that they are for sure, are pretty sure that they don't have space for, and not worry about the bins being completely full at the end of the year as much as am I going to have space at the end of harvest?

Ryan

Moe: So I'll agree with you there. I've said that previously on big harvests that you know, in the last 10 years. And I haven't had anybody take me up on that advice, which is maybe take your first 20% to town, as opposed to your last 20%.

Chris: Yeah, run the sweep if you have to, just to keep Paul and Korn out on the front end.

Ryan

Moe: Right. I mean, and, but it's kind of amazing how they want to fill their own. It's the, It's breaking of that psychology. I've got to fill mine up first because what if I don't have enough out there to get filled up? I— it's—

Chris: so I have another question.

Ryan

Moe: We've advised that before.

Chris: I have another question.

Ryan

Moe: Nobody's ever taken the advice, right?

Chris: I have a question for that, though, not to interrupt, but it is for most operations, not all, but there's line of credit, there's, you know, and so you look at the cost of sitting on those bushels. And everything, and, and some of those bushels aren't— so there's some people with nothing sold, there's some with a ton sold, and there's everything in between. But those sold bushels, getting that whatever the basis is and getting those bushels delivered and priced so that you can start to shut off that line of credit, um, comments on that? I mean, that would be kind of the purpose of that. Any thoughts there?

Ryan

Moe: Oh yeah. I mean, rates are, rates are higher. And if you're not managing your interest rate risk or looking at your interest rate risk the same way that you're looking at your basis risk or your board risk, I mean, there's some adjustments that need to be made to your business practice because you're exactly right. It's a lot more expensive to borrow money today than it was 4 years ago, 5 years ago, 6 years ago, 8 years ago. Interest rates are higher today than they were. And even if you have a a feeling that the Fed is going to drop rates here in September by 50 basis points, that's still not a needle mover. The fact of the matter is you need to be managing your interest rate risk the same way that you're managing your basis risk, the same way that you're managing your board risk. You need to be looking at that as an item, as an item on your cost of goods sold.

It's a very real expense, and what you're saying is exactly right. However, the people that are still holding corn and soybeans left over from last year, and that number is, you know, over 2 billion bushels. The numbers aren't exactly the same for those folks because they, a lot of them, don't need the money. They don't need the cash flow, so therefore they're not borrowing the money the way that they otherwise would in a more cash flow sensitive operation. And so there's not a really one-size-fits-all equation for that, but I've made that argument all year, much to, I guess, much of the fact I've been wrong on it, which is, how is basis— how do you expect basis to get any better from here? Right? And the answer is, even in a 2 billion bushel carryout environment, it stayed stronger longer than any of us ever expected it to. And so it might do that same thing again this year.

We just, we don't know. It's too early. But no, you're, you're exactly— you're looking at the financials Exactly the way that you should look at the financials. Oh, and I would even— decision that's driving.

Chris: Yeah. And I would even say too, though, even the people who are flush with cash, there's an opportunity cost of 5.25%. I mean, you can go to a Vanguard account and dump it in just a money market and instantaneously be generating 5.27% or something like that last time I looked.

Ryan

Moe: You know, or stacking old or stacking new corn on top of old that might also be going bad and having to face dockage fees when you deliver it.

Chris: That's just it.

Ryan

Moe: I mean, you said storing $100 offline, you said storing $100 bills was a lot easier than storing.

Chris: Yeah, they stack straight up. Corn falls to the side, you know, $100 bills stack them straight up.

Ryan

Moe: Right. And I'm not one of these guys that has a tax problem. So like, I, you know, I don't, I don't have that luxury in my life yet, so I'm still in the, I'm still in the camp where I'm trying to make as much money as I can.

Chris: All right, yeah, so that's for sure. Next question is, is I kind of shift over to soybeans for a minute and kind of get your take on, on what you're seeing there. We definitely, we saw a little bit of strength last week on that. Are we going to continue sideways on soybeans? And I guess I should ask that on corn too. I mean, on corn, soybeans, wheat for that matter, every, you know, the 3 crops. I mean, are we destined for a sideways thing for a few months here, do you think? Or what, what's one of the outlooks? Because I think that's why people, you know, like we just were talking about, that are, that are putting it in the bin and holding on to it or whatever, is the, you know, if you're doing that, it's the assumption that you're gonna see a price increase or you're rolling it forward.

But the problem is, is the carry is about equal to the to the interest rates, even when you just look at the opportunity side of things. So what's your, what's your thoughts? Continue sideways here with the crops or what?

Ryan

Moe: Well, yeah. So this winter, you know, we do a lot of speaking, a lot of speaking engagements, different parts of the world. And the market outlook presentation that I gave all winter, it was titled Comfortably Numb and stole it from the Pink Floyd song. And basically the summary of that was of that was that I wasn't bullish, I wasn't bearish, I was bored. And I felt like I was going to be bored for the foreseeable future. Um, and that outlook proved to be inaccurate because I thought we were going to stay range-bound in that 450-ish area. I thought we were just going to be in this 450 to 470 trading range and it was just going to stay there and it was just going to stay flat, it was going to stay boring. And farmers would need money and then they would sell and then the funds would buy a little bit and sell a little bit.

The stalemate between the farmer and the fund lasted far, far longer than I ever anticipated. And unfortunately, with the way that gravity on commodities works is that if you are not having a bull be fed every day, the market drifts lower and that is indeed what happened. And so I want to go out and still say that I can see a stagnant marketplace for the foreseeable future, but I would, I would love to see a trading range higher than what it is right now. But that's going to, that's going to depend on how long this stalemate between the funds and the farmer continues. The Friday CFTC report did just get released. Funds actually bought 65,000, almost 66,000 contracts. And we saw the price movement on corn during the same timeframe. Let me pull up my numbers here. And the price of corn only moved a dime. So that tells you how much farmer selling was behind that, behind that movement.

So we'll probably stick into the same spot, and then the farmer selling is going to absorb any and all of the fund short liquidation that there would be, which likely leads us into big fund moves. A dime here, dime there on corn. So unfortunately, and I can see the same thing, maybe, maybe not so much on beans. Got a really interesting thing going on here with this trade war between Canada and China. I don't know if you watched that, watch what happened to the canola market this week, it got just absolutely decimated because of this. For the U.S. though, that— if we can stay out of a trade war with China, that might lead to a pretty significant opportunity for the U.S. because that gives us another potential outlet for our soybean meal. And considering the amount of crush plants that we've built here in the last few years, we need an outlet for soybean meal in the worst way.

Maybe we go ahead and see an increase in soybean meal exports which is a benefit to the soy farmer. And if this drought materializes in Brazil and Argentina, maybe you could see some action in the soybeans. But then again, we don't know what a soybean yield is on in the US until you're in the combine looking at the yield monitor. Like all estimates— have you ever seen an accurate estimate on soybean yield? I— because I have not. It's amazing. Like, You can drive by a field that looks like garbage and it will yield 65 bushel beans. Drive across the road there, you'll have a field that'll look just absolutely magnificent. You'll assume that the yield would be significantly better and it'll yield 67, right? Soybeans are tricky that way. And so we just don't know how big this US crop is yet. But one green shoot, one opportunity. I know you like to look for some positive things.

We could see some nice things. If we can pick up soybean meal exports to compensate for the Chinese-Canadian trade war.

Chris: Mm-hmm.

Ryan

Moe: Yeah.

Chris: What do you think? What's your, your thought process on legitimately on those demand prospects though? I mean, it seems like we're, regardless of which administration gets in and everything, it sounds like there's going to still be a lot of tension on the trade side of the equation, and it still comes down to dollars and cents, doesn't it? I mean, if the weather straightens back out in South America and that kind of stuff, is there, you know, what are the odds of getting, you know, getting China or getting some of this demand moving? Because that's what it's going to take, right, on all the commodities for that matter. I mean, we're going to have to— I mean, we got to sell this stuff. We're getting really damn good at producing it, but we still got to keep it moving out the pipeline.

Ryan

Moe: Well, I'll, I'll say this. You know, I don't want to get political, but it's really impossible not to. But yeah, both sides of the aisle are in the trade— they're in the camp of wanting to get into a trade war. I— here's a question I would have: if Trump gets in, are we sure ag is going to be involved in the trade war. What if ag stays out of it? I mean, very few people remember this beautiful agreement that was called Phase One. Remember what that did for us?

Chris: Yeah, it was huge.

Ryan

Moe: It was fantastic. It just got forgotten. And then it was just forgotten. And because what, 1% of America is based in agriculture, it never even made a headline after that, but it certainly impacted those of us in agriculture. What if Phase 1 gets reimplemented? Or if a trade war does happen, it's fought where the trade war should have happened in the first place, which is in Silicon Valley. The, you know, Google, Netflix, Facebook, all those, they're the ones with the IP, the intellectual property, and that's truly at risk from China. So what if we get into a trade war and ag just happens to be exempt? Isn't that a good thing? Yeah. So it— that could happen.

Um, if Harris gets in, I think it's just going to be more of the norm, and they're just going to continue to— the Chinese will continue their investments in countries in South America, and we will, um, and we will see them just grossly outperform the United States. So if a trade war happens, I think we just all need to push and push as hard as we possibly can to just leave ag out of it. There's nothing wrong with our trade deals to begin with back in 2018. They were fine. This— yeah.

Chris: So, so another question. This week on the, on the 12th, USDA gonna provide some additional information for us. Any thoughts on that as we head into that? So I know you said you didn't have your crystal ball, or you wondered if I had mine or whatever, but, uh, we're recording this in advance of that, obviously. Anything that farmers need to be watching for that report, watching out for, being careful of, and thinking through?

Ryan

Moe: Yeah, so our average trade estimate right now for U.S. corn yield is going to be 182.4. Our trade estimate came out on Wednesday, last Wednesday, so that came out at 182.9. So we're just a little bit above USDA as it sits right now. Now granted, ours is— our methodology for ours is guessing what the number is going to be for the January report, so we're not trying to predict what's going to happen on this report. However, I did get enough, enough players in very key corn growing areas come back to me on the part of the survey that I took for people for our company that were very— they were steady on their corn yield compared to where they were last month. They were like, maybe, maybe take a couple bushels off corn and add a couple to beans.

Right, so I would say the bean yield from the USDA might be a surprise, but I would see it being a surprise to the downside just because of the amount of press that people— the amount of press that has been received on just the beautiful looking bean crop. But like I said earlier, we don't know what beans are going to yield until we're in the combine. We just, we just don't have a great grasp on that. The carryout situation, if we can go ahead and get our carryout somehow below 2 billion bushels, that would just be, that would be really great. But that's going to have to come from more exports and just more demand. And that's what we're, that's what we need more so than anything is in 2024 and 2025 and 2026, anything and everything that we can do to support demand, we as an agricultural industry need to support that.

So I'd like to see exports increase, but the only way exports increase is if the commercials can get the exports, can get the bushels into their hands and get it moved through the system.

Chris: So I have one last question for you. It's a hard one. I know I talked to you yesterday on the phone and I said I might ask this question, or maybe I wouldn't ask this question on a podcast. I am going to ask this question, so you might already kind of come in your way. So, um, you know, we're talking about these big yields, right? You said, you know, 100 and 82.9, let's say, you know, let's call it 183 on corn, let's call it 52 or something on soybeans. Higher yields in a lot of the farm operations than they thought, and they're going to have to go to either selling it or storing it commercially. The question I have for you is, why would anyone pay commercial storage if they could just go ahead and sell it?

Ryan

Moe: Great question. Do the math. Let's break out the pen and paper and let's do the math.

Chris: They could use Profit Manager too, just to put a plug in for Profit Manager.

Ryan

Moe: Yeah. You know, I mean, I know some guys that know a few things about this. Do you know who those— do you have any contact information for those guys?

Chris: Yeah, it might be Shaeffle.

Ryan

Moe: That could be. Maybe. Yeah, I maybe start with him and then see, see if he might refer you somewhere else. But no, I know you're exactly right. Give us the right— I mean, give us, give us a, give us an answer based in math against your argument, and I'd like to hear it. And that, that the only answer on that is going to be hope, and hope is not a marketing plan.

Chris: Well, and the reason I'm asking that question is just to come back to the full circle of where we started the conversation of if the yields are good, and we're managing basis, we're managing flat price, we're delivering those bushels that we had pre-sold or maybe didn't but don't have space for, you know, why would we, why would we pay storage on that? Why wouldn't we just cash it? The only reason is we think the market's going to go higher. Otherwise, why would you do that? And then that was— comes back to the second question, third question, I guess it was, of where do we go from here? Probably sideways. For a while is kind of what I'm gathering from you. So I guess, you know, and again, it's not adver— not, you know, we're not giving recommendations here, but, you know, I'm always coming back to, you know, do your math. Every operation's unique, every operation's different.

And I think we got to get real critical on a year like this. Operating lines are higher than they have been in the last few years. Interest rates are significantly higher and we have way more inventory. Than we've had with a pretty big crop coming on. I'm going to leave it with final thoughts and final words.

Ryan

Moe: Yeah. So, so you want to— would you want to control your own destiny now when you know what your basis level is going to be? Or do you want to wait and hope that it's higher after, at the tail end of a harvest that might be the biggest harvest on record and pay for the hope, because you got to pay for the hope along the way too.

Chris: There's a cost for the hope.

Ryan

Moe: So that's where it's like, give us an argument based upon math and let's talk. But the only answer is, well, I hope it goes higher. Well, frankly, so do I, because it's a lot better for everybody in the communities that we serve if we have, you know, better prices for commodities. It's better for everybody. It just is. The communities that we're in, they thrive in periods where we have good, strong, good, strong commodity prices. Yeah. And both livestock and grains, the communities just do better. The car dealership does better. The hometown contractor does better. The, you know, everybody does better. So I'm— trust me, I'm rooting for that too. But just in case it doesn't happen, I'd like to go ahead and have, have the business be run by the mind of a businessman.

Chris: Yeah. And then, yeah, the other difficult thing too, I think, Ryan, is, you know, we were just coming off of summer meetings and looking at Profit Manager and looking at sort of the averages. And I don't have them all exactly done now, but just to where I'm at at this point right now in time, we're looking at about, I think it was $76 an acre in the red on average. Between corn and beans on average. It's different for each crop in different regions and stuff, but on average that's pretty ugly when you see red ink at the bottom. But we've had several really good years in a row, and sometimes I think we have to kind of recalibrate our minds a little bit to, to limit losses instead of capitalize or maximize gains sometimes too, because just the environment we're in where the cost of production was last year was the highest cost of production we'd ever seen.

And then as we went into 2024 from 2023, we carried essentially almost exact same cost of production across into '24 while at the same time we saw this huge market price decline with the prospects of not seeing a necessarily, unless something really happens that none of us know about, that we're going to see enough of a rally to get us back more than maybe breakeven for a lot of operations.

Ryan

Moe: So you've asked me questions. Let me ask you a question to answer your question. In your history of doing this, who has done better overall for the growth of their business? Those that have had a— that have had great discipline to the metrics that you just discussed, or those that hold out hope and throw a Hail Mary every August?

Chris: No, I think you probably know the answer to that one too. But it's been, you know, it's a— it's kind of the— I— we've been kind of looking at it in 12-year cycles. There's usually a couple of, of, uh, big win years in a 12-year cycle. There's usually, you know, 3 or 4 that you're scrapping to break even. And then the balance, there's some margin of profitability in there, but it has to be managed. And in other words, there's gimme years in a 12-year cycle. From what we've seen, there's some gimme years where if you wake up, you're going to make money.

Ryan

Moe: And right. But that's, that's been agriculture since the beginning of history. I mean, it's not just— that's not just the last 12-year phenomenon. That's been, you know, since they first started, you know, turning dirt. Agriculture is an industry that goes through long stretches of small gains or small profits or breakevens sprinkled in with short stints of greatness. And we were just exiting out of one of the longest short stints of greatness that we've seen in agriculture. And that's what— and but I'm going to say those that stay disciplined to the plan, that stay disciplined to the business, are going to have the best chance of success. And I'm going to continue to preach that. And that's— I mean, I have to stay disciplined to the principles of my business. You know, I think everybody else should do.

Chris: Yeah, we kind of have to. And And this situation is a little different even going back to 2012, you know, from '11, '12 going into '13 and then especially into '14, how that's kind of mirrored, you know, '24 is, you know, interest rates are significantly higher, cost of production and the dollars we're dealing with is significantly higher, especially after the inflationary impact of the last 4 years. Machinery and equipment significantly higher as a percent of cost. And we've also seen a lot of producers catching up after crappy years of '15 through '19. And so there was a lot of money spent. And so now what we're seeing is there's a pretty good chunk of, you know, debt service that's going to have to be accomplished. And I think that's what's holding some of the people back from making sales is I can't sell at this level, otherwise I'm not going to cash flow.

And I think we just have to be careful to make sure that's not the only reason why we're either selling or not selling, is that we're looking at the business, like you said, and managing the cost of money, managing those decisions with an algebra problem. To your point, there's more to it than just the flat price or looking at just the yield. It's kind of the algebra problem here of How do we, you know, limit, limit the risk and capitalize on what we can? But, you know, we may have to recalibrate after the last couple of years, obviously, for sure. But I'm going to, I'm going to wrap it up with that. Is there any final thing, anything you want to leave the growers with as we go into the second week of September?

Ryan

Moe: Yeah, I just, I encourage everybody to look at their operation when they, you know, start an outlook presentation at a, you know, at a farmer meeting and sit there and they say, you know, I'm not looking at a group of farmers. Anymore. I am looking at a group of CEOs of multi-million dollar multinational organizations. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, well, and I said, and I really feel that you should treat your business that way. Because if you looked at your business and if you managed it like the CEO of a multi-million dollar multinational organization would, they would, they would be, you know, really up on their monthly financials. They would be really dialed into what it is that they do that they need to do to create success, not just for this year, but, you know, on a decade-long horizon.

And if you look at your business like that, you behave differently when you're carrying around the title of CEO than you do as, you know, Joe Blow farmer. Yeah. And that's, that's what they have to view themselves as because that's truly what these producers that are listening to this podcast are.

Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ryan

Moe: These farmers— I mean that as a compliment. I do. Oh yeah, it is a compliment.

Chris: Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's just businesses that happen to farm, so that's, that's awesome, right? So, um, one last thing I'll leave everybody with, and, and Ryan, you will be at the Executive Business Conference for Ag View Solutions this year. You're gonna kind of be helping us with the MC role and some other things like that as we, uh, work through the conference. So we're excited to have you there, and I just kind of want to use a second to remind everybody, if you are looking at Going to the conference this year in Fort Lauderdale, the dates are January 2nd, 2nd or 22nd, 23rd, 24th and 25th, if I can get that out correctly. And then again, it's in Fort Lauderdale at Margaritaville Hotel on Hollywood Beach. And so if you haven't signed up yet, I'm sure it is going to get full. We have spaces for 150 people.

And so make sure if you are going to go get signed up early so that way we make sure we have your spot. So with that said, again, Ryan, really appreciate your conversation today. Um, I think there's a lot of lessons, a lot of things we need to be thinking about, and, and we got a business to manage. Really appreciate it. Thanks a lot, Ryan.

Ryan

Moe: Hey, thank you, Chris, and look forward to seeing many of you in Florida here in a few months.

Chris: Yeah, and we'll get you back before that too. We're gonna get you back and see, see, uh, what we know as we get into harvest a little bit here too.

Ryan

Moe: So yeah. Just not after the January report, please.

Chris: Well, we'll do it before that. How's that?

Ryan

Moe: Oh, no, just anybody that week or two after the January report, just give that slot to anybody but me, please. Okay.

Chris: We'll get ahold of Pete Meyer. We'll put it on him.

Ryan

Moe: So perfect. Yeah, yeah, perfect.

Chris: All right. Sounds good. Well, thanks, everybody, again. And we will catch you again next time on the Agri-Pitch.

Ryan

Moe: Thank you.