Rethinking your marketing plan: weekly market outlook, Dec. 22nd-26th

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Shay

Foulk: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. Today we are going to talk markets as we go into the Christmas week. And we've got right beside me here sitting is the wizard and the know everything about marketing, uh, Jared Cree. Jared, how's it going?

Jarod

Creed: Well, that's a, that's a pretty, uh, generous, generous, uh, introduction there.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, well, um, you were here all day today. We were working with a family, and, and, um, you do a lot to help operations with, uh, business structure and, um, risk mitigation and all those kind of things. And so I think that's really a cool thing here that, that you do. And so you got to kind of see how we operate, and we got a lot of clients that work with you and get to see how you operate. But I think today what we want to talk about as we go into this Christmas timeframe in terms of, you know, markets— and it's a slow week sometimes— so kind of get your take on kind of what guys might want to be looking at as we go into the Christmas week in terms of markets.

Jarod

Creed: Well, historically, we should be pretty quiet from Thanksgiving through Christmas, but that's definitely not been the case this last 3, 4 weeks specifically related to soybeans. But I'll double down. I do think that it will be pretty quiet through the end of the year, absent of, you know, our black swan risk that it seems like— or we're still swimming around that possibility from increased conflict between US and Venezuela, still a consistent conflict between Ukraine and Russia that seems to maybe have coming to a head here pretty soon. Either things maybe get worse or it truly does see a peace deal get offered and accepted and something calms down on that front. But again, we should see this market be relatively quiet, maybe pick up in the beginning of January, but, uh, all focus is probably on January 12th. I think it's this year, January 12th.

I might be wrong on that date, but our quarterly stocks and final production for last year's production.

Shay

Foulk: Let's go there for a minute. Um, you know, there's— I think there's a lot of people that are of the opinion that the corn market— or the, excuse me, the corn acre yield number needs to be adjusted down some. But then it seems like on the, you know, on the balance sheet, they kind of move some other things around that might mitigate that a little bit. Talk about some of the things that we might be needing to watch for on that, on that USDA report.

Jarod

Creed: The historical tendency from a monthly WASDE is that we have elasticity between our total supply and our total demand. And you can make an argument that on today's balance sheets of what we've been working with for the last couple months, we have a hefty cushion in the residual category. Now, when you look away from the residual, we just came off a record weekly production on corn ethanol. We have a blistering pace of both corn export sales and export inspections. So shipments moving out of the country are at a very rapid pace, to the extent people question how much more capacity do we actually have, which is a very fair argument. There's a point here where cash markets, both spreads and basis, suggest that our overall supply is not as advertised. It's probably a dangerous path to go down at the moment to say that that's all on the heels of production has to come down.

I will agree that there's probably room to take production down a little bit. How much can we cut from the residual category? Because it's going to be really tough to, to touch or even cut our export book, cut our ethanol book, We're losing some of the elasticity that I mentioned before, which for the farmers, somewhat a perfect world, move and use a tremendous amount of product before we realize that maybe the supply is less than what is as advertised. So I would start with our demand is very, very solid on corn. That is what we definitely need long-term. We have a legitimate chance at exporting 3 billion bushel worth of corn. And to put that into context, a 2 to 2.1 billion bushel carryout in today's environment, given our usage, is really similar to probably a 1.4, 1.6 carryout of years past. And that's a stocks-to-use ratio.

So you could make an argument that our supply is tight enough that any type of uncertainty, whether it be South America production this next spring and summer, whether it be US production here this next year, continued resiliency in the corn export pace, you know, things can be just tight enough to maybe recreate some of the old-school seasonal opportunities that we've been accustomed to for years that just haven't been around.

Shay

Foulk: So you were talking about corn there and the, the huge demand and all that. For the producers that are sitting on unsold '25 corn specifically, we'll start there. Um, what are we watching for? What should they be watching for? Because, you know, basis is one of the incremental things that I think we got to be careful of to manage. But also, you know, this flat price influences the basis too. The price goes up and basis goes away, especially if producers start moving stuff. What are some of the things that you're watching or you think producers need to be thinking about to, you know, to try to continue to get this '25 crop marketed and out of the, out of the bins.

Jarod

Creed: Now this first answer is going to be historical. What should we be watching for right now? I think there probably is a risk that if we have some type of unexpected board rally, farmer engagement surpasses what our daily consumptive use or daily demand is, because it's opposite of that today. The farmer's willingness to sell is not at the same pace of what we're using the product and the demand for the product truly is. That can flip on its head and probably doesn't take all that much of a rally on the board to make that happen. Because you go back to January 2nd of this year comparative to today's price, we are legitimately 4, 5, 6 cents away on the close today from where we started the year.

And what that suggests is the farmer planted, grew, harvested, put it away and is now very, very close to being afforded the opportunities to sell the highest cash price that they had access to for the entire growing season of this crop. So is there a risk in basis? Yes. I personally don't feel there's as much risk as maybe what we would tend to see, once again because of how solid the demand is for the product. And I have to If we can jump to beans for a second, because the, the conversation around the traditional marketing versus what the farmer possibly needs to consider here for a minute, it's different this year than years past. So I'll get into that here in a second. But on the soybean side, just flip it on its head, borderline right now on export demand.

We still have a good export book, but a couple years removed now from that massive book of business that we get to ship beans from September through January, primarily to China, continues to leave the market looking for more. And during the government shutdown, the belief that China was actively buying in the marketplace— this isn't a complaint, but it's definitely hindsight 20/20 here. With, with getting the information that we are accustomed to getting with the government is opened, I don't know if beans would have ever went as high as they actually did. And furthermore, that exacerbated a situation of the rally and then a dollar setback. The things that we were missing was our weekly export sales, and we're still not caught up on those weekly export sales.

We would have been looking for China to be in that book of business that entire time that— I don't want to say led to believe that China was actually buying, but that was the word on the street, that was the conversation. Well, China did buy. They They just didn't buy anywhere near the volume as maybe what was expected. So furthermore, what did that create from positioning in the marketplace? Big money, managed money. They went on a massive buying spree, and we were all blind on how much they truly did buy. They bought upwards of 250,000 contracts of soybeans on that rally, and it probably bid them because we just didn't sell what was believed to have happened.

So it goes back to the idea of, hey, if we had these export sales reports— again, all hindsight 20/20 here— if we had those export sales reports, we would have seen that our book of business was not anywhere near as advertised at this point, and you would have seen somebody getting way out of bounds from a managed money position. Historically Farmers incentivized— when you got demand for your product and you have speculative money that wants to own that product on paper as well, we are incentivized to sell it to them at that point in time. So a rally came, takes away— doesn't mean that the soybean market is over, because that does lead me to a different piece on soybeans.

Our domestic demand, if you looked at a trend line of a percentage of our production of what goes into soybean crush domestically now and you compared that to a trend line of what percentage of Brazilian soybean production goes out for export, you wouldn't be able to pick the difference between the charts. The percentage is darn near identical. As we continue to evolve towards more domestic demand for our soybean product, 2.7 billion bushels of soybean crush this year is definitely possible. That's more than what we've ever exported. So can't lose sight on the fact that our domestic demand and everybody else excluding China will likely still be there to source beans from us. It just doesn't come again in that September through January time slot that we used to talk about. Hey, have your beans done by February.

I'm not so sure that's the case anymore, especially, you know, we're going to be 50% harvested in Brazil come 60 days from now, less than 60 days. So there's just some dynamics of difference between the corn demand and the soybean demand that I don't think can be, um, you know, they're apples and oranges right now. And it's not suggesting that China will not fulfill what we are, um, you know, reading 12 million ton this year, 50 or 20 to 25 million ton the next couple years. Well, define a year. Is that in a marketing year? Is that shipments? Is that buying that many beans that year? Because there's a whole lot of differences there on timing, right?

Shay

Foulk: So we've, we've discussed the, um, the demand side, both corn and soybeans there, um, and you mentioned South America as a kind of a transition to the supply side, we're in this, you know, theoretical potential weather market with South America because of where they're at. How much influence is there there? And, and, and to, to finish asking the question I asked before, not that you bounced around it, but I'm kind of curious of, you know, with that into consideration along with the demand that you talked about, how aggressive do we be do we on trying to get this '25 crop sold so we're working on '26, or are we doing those in concert?

Jarod

Creed: All right, so South America weather first hasn't been an issue. Last year about this time we started getting maybe a little excited from being too wet in some areas, primarily related to corn, pushing their safrinha corn planting back. But as of today, not a lot to write home about there. Uh, It's probably a safe bet to assume that they have a record soybean crop coming. Is that 180 million ton? Is it 177? Well, time will tell. But to get to the pace of the farmer selling— and this is where it gets difficult, all right? And you and I have been at this a long time, and admittedly, the last 6 months, this is a tough thing to kind of comprehend and try to manage around. The game has changed so much for the North America farmer from a total revenue management situation.

So let's just put it this way: you walk into a coffee shop and corn just rallied 50 cents a bushel, happens, you know, the week of Christmas into New Year's. Farmer's going to be excited. Well, you can put hot water, cold water on that excitement really, really quick by telling them that 50 cents a bushel, your gross revenue just went down. How do you comprehend that? The point being here is with the changes in the big beautiful bill, as you work through the marketing year average for the national farmer, we're in a dead spot here between crop insurance. Harvest price has been established, spring price is still 30, 45 days away, but ARC County and PLC for the crop that we just harvested is still very, very relevant, to the point that there is more money to come from that program, or program higher of this year coupled with your election next year.

There is more money to come on prices being steady to lower than there is if the market goes higher. So it's almost like you're measuring this this risk tolerance that one has. As the marketing year average goes on, it's going to get harder to move that average price. Well, by the end of January, soybeans should be give or take 50, 50%, maybe 60% established. Makes it harder to move that marketing year average, solidifying what those potential payments are. Corn, you're not going to be 50% until probably the end of February. So if you consider if the market jumped 50 cents, the farmer's going to sell an incredible amount. But was it the right decision to sell after that rally? Yes. Before the rally? Arguably not, because the total revenue goes down as the market goes up. And I'm not saying this, that this is a bulletproof type of, uh, philosophy or thought process here.

But if I'm a 95 million acre farmer, I'm the one farmer in the U.S. right now, arguably the only thing relative to corn that I'm monitoring is my basis opportunities of allowing me to turn some of that into cash. But I need to respect the timing of a huge bucket of revenue associated with the farm program. And reminder to everybody, Big Beautiful Bill changed the game to the extent that reference prices went up, ARC County trigger goes up, ARC County max payment goes up, payment limitations stayed the same, but it was in the middle of the growing season, which in essence I would, I would guess that there are more counties in the state of Iowa that will receive over $100 an acre on their corn base than less ARC County. PLC at a minimum at today's price, 42 cents a bushel, because the new reference price being $4.42, current marketing year average at $4.

Market goes up, marketing year average goes up, cuts into that 42-cent-a-bushel PLC payment that is on the table, just like it would in ARC County. But right now there's probably more counties on PLC. It's going to be related to a farmer's PLC yield. But there's probably more producers that would get at minimum $50, $60 an acre on their corn base from PLC. Now granted, right now our county is double, if not 50% more, for most places. That's a tough one to manage. I don't, I don't have the crystal ball on what this means for farmer marketing here in the future 18 to 24 months. For years, if farm program money came around, it was gravy on top.

But imagine as the farmer sits across the table from the banker at this time of year doing a financial statement, and they get to show the banker that on average between their corn base and their soybean base, they are missing $70, $80 an acre that is still coming to them for the crop that they just harvested. I'm a 2,000-acre farm. If I have— if I'm a husband and wife, it's, it's, you know, for for us, like Jared and Cassie at the FSA office, that's $225,000 payment limitations. If I have enough acres, I'm running the possibility of having a quarter million dollars. And it doesn't take rocket science to back into that. What's a quarter million divided by an average of $70, $80 an acre? That's— it's above average size farm, but a 3,000-acre farm is probably missing a quarter million dollars today.

So not on a soapbox, not putting the tinfoil hat on, the, the game has changed and it has significantly changed for next year. So in all reality, if I was to assume again, I'm that 95 million acre corn farmer across all of the U.S. corn, more or less next year's corn needs to rally 30, 35 cents a bushel before any farm safety nets become irrelevant. Like, it has to for it to become irrelevant. And at that point in time, ideally it would happen during the February insurance average, come away with a higher insurance price. But now the ball is in my court. But leading up to that point, there is an elevated risk that all I'm doing is taking money from my left pocket and putting in my right pocket. We joke all the time, marketing, just math. Crop insurance, just math. Well, now farm program, just math.

If I had to choose 4 things of input cost management, marketing, crop insurance, and farm program, I'm pretty sure marketing is at the very, very bottom as of today. Yeah, but it's not as easy as it used to be, or it's a flip to the mindset of the farmer that they have to understand the changes that happened in the big beautiful bill requires action on the farmer's part to adapt to how the world has changed. Yeah.

So if there's one other comment about that, from the increased subsidies to crop insurance, the higher payment limitations for next year, the increased reference prices, getting to choose the insurance and the farm program in the same, you know, 15, 30-day stretch come March, there is an elevated risk that all of that safety net, the introduction of that higher revenue of a safety net kills volatility in the US market because it allows the farmer financially to take less risk and plant more stuff. And when I say less risk, I would argue that our safety net to the farmer between crop insurance and farm program relative to cost of production is the best it's ever been. Not probably not a popular opinion. I go spend $1,100 an acre to plant a corn crop. My worst case between insurance and farm program is probably over $1,000 an acre, and it only goes up in the event the market goes down.

Because they don't care about each other, but they can both pay simultaneously. Versus 7, 8 years ago, I'm spending $800 an acre, farm program irrelevant, and maybe I'm only able to insure $600, $650 bucks an acre. $100, $150 risk that can't get better unless prices go higher. And today it's opposite. Our percentage of risk to the capital we're putting on the table is a fraction. And so last comment— I lied. The other challenge of all this is there's going to be numerous conversations that the cash on hand and/or the value of the grain that is in the bin doesn't meet today's operating expense. We understand that. Yeah, but that's only 80% of the revenue that the farmer is going to generate. There is another 20% of revenue that we can't put as an account receivable. It just comes later. And so it creates this cash flow deficit. It creates this working capital, not true black eye.

And from a CPA level, a banker level, to the farmer level, to even the marketing level, it has to be comprehensive, understanding truly what is the farmer's risk to Today, your risk as a farmer is that the market goes up. That's a bad risk. Until it goes enough.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, at this level. So like you said, you know, a 50 cent— I mean, people are going to need to re— you know, go back and listen to your comments maybe 2 or 3 times to digest and metabolize what you said, because there's some complexity in that. And it's counterintuitive to a lot of people as to what you just said. I agree with you. It's, it's completely accurate. But it's counterintuitive. Because, you know, we want the price to go up so we can sell, we want the price to go up for one day, so we can sell and then go right back down. Because of all of the tools that have been afforded to us through all these various, you know, and I call it the alphabet soup, of protection, whether it's through the crop insurance or whether it's through, you know, the ARC and PLC or any of these, these other avenues.

And not to mention an ad hoc or something that gets thrown at us like we just had a week or so ago, you know, with Trump stepping in and doing, doing a bridge payment.

Jarod

Creed: So I don't think it's that crazy of a scenario. You might agree with me here that let's just say between now and March 15th we get an opportunity to see next year's corn, the board price, get to $5. Which do you see more probable the next 8 to 12 months after that? Corn going back to $4 or corn going to $6?

Shay

Foulk: Well, if we have a, if we have an excellent growing season, we're going to grow a hell of a crop and we're going to have a lot of planted corn acres. Because when we look at the budgets, we see a significant advantage to the corn acres in terms of revenue. So, you know, I think the odds are significantly lower.

Jarod

Creed: So let's just do an easy math calculation of what each one of those means. Corn goes to $5, farmers enticed to sell 50% of their crop, forward marketing. Then it goes to $6, farmer gets the other— sell the other half at $6. Simple average, $5.50. No insurance money, no farm program money. All right, easy one to understand there. Same side, I sell 50% of that crop at $5, and then the market goes back to $4. I've got 50% of my crop that lost that dollar a bushel. The other 50% was already sold. Insurance doesn't care what volume you sold. It's going to— once it triggers, it's going to pay dollar for dollar. Farm Program does not care about your insurance, does not care what you have or haven't sold. Once it triggers, it's going to pay dollar for dollar in total up to the payment limitation of an operation.

So all of a sudden I could collect 70 cents a bushel from insurance, I could collect 70 cents a bushel from Farm Program, I quote unquote collected 50 cents— or excuse me, a dollar a bushel on the 50% grain that I sold, that last 50% of my crop was exposed to the dollar drop, but I just received $1.40 over here from these other two components. So a $5 average— or excuse me, a $5 sale, $4— I'm at $4.50 average. $4.50 plus $1.40 is now $5.90.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah.

Jarod

Creed: $4 corn with a 50% sale at $5 equals almost $6 corn. That is the cold hard truth math around the changes, and it's probably conservative as well. Well, and total revenue— I'm taking total revenue generated by my total production. What does that equal into cents per bushel? Because It probably elevates the risk, you know, introducing this concept of cents per bushel breakeven tied to yield is not quite— it's still relevant, don't get me wrong, but it's not quite as relevant today and for next year as what we've been accustomed to for years.

Shay

Foulk: So basically what you're doing in this podcast is the same thing that's happened in the markets, is you're throwing a wrench into how do we market just like the government programs, the big beautiful bill, the crop insurance, which came out of the big beautiful bill, the crop insurance things is sort of a mind shift. It's counterintuitive. It's a mind shift and things to bring up. My last question for you then is, with all of that considered, we do still need to pull the trigger. So are we managing basis? Are we managing, you know, Because, and the other thing of it is cash flow, you know, because like you said, all this money comes in.

I mean, I just had a client— you, it's interesting you said 70 cents or whatever— I just had a client, STRP payment, we just ran the numbers for him on his '23 crop, and we're trying to look at the financials from an accrual perspective along with a cash perspective. And the cash perspective is inaccurate from the standpoint of we're bringing money in, and that, like in this guy's case, we were bringing money in from the '23 crop and we divided the payments by what his payment divided by his bushels, and it was 73— or no, 77 cents a bushel that elevated his price to like $5.03 versus where he had sold his grain. So it's really, like you said, it's counterintuitive. And it's— and it makes the math a little hard. It also does kind of screw with your mind a little bit on, on making sales. And And we still though got to sell the physical in the given year.

Jarod

Creed: So for cash flow, we, we have to sell the physical following the harvest to generate the cash to pay off that crop and the next year. The bridge to get there is a tough piece because as of today, I think the best offset to all this is once you get past the October average it's like you almost have to just accept the average of the market moving forward unless the market moves so fast and high enough, far enough. And really, once you get to December 1st, January 1st, if the market makes a significant move, that average is not going to run— it's not going to change as fast. The delta of it's going to decrease.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah.

Jarod

Creed: So post that time frame, if the market moves enough, it makes it easier for the farmer just to turn it into cash like we've traditionally done. Talking about since we're social, what do I truly need? But if the market is not at that level, it's almost like if I've got 100 days in front of me or 200 days in front of me and I've got 200,000 bushels to sell, is the easiest thing that I'm just literally going to sell 5,000 bushels a week? But that doesn't meet the cash flow needs of a lot of operations. So how do you bridge all that? That's a— that's not a question. That's more of a statement to the entire ag industry that for the next 8 months— and a lot of lenders, right? Maybe it's sealing more grain at the FSA to generate the cash on that front. I don't— I think that that's a better solution than, you know, a lot of inventory notes.

Shay

Foulk: But yeah, well, but it's kind of the same thing. I mean, what you're saying on the 2026, and this conversation is going way where I didn't think it would, which is good. But, you know, what you're saying then is, you know, and this is obvious based on what you've said, is 2026, you're better off to sit on your hands as of right now than to get excited unless the market goes far enough in your math to make sense based on— and people need to go back and listen to what you said again and understand the logic— but the market's got to move far enough, fast enough, and you got to be able to pull the trigger on that level because where we're at, at these prices right now, most of the guys that we work with aren't in the— they're not in a profitable position anyway for, for new crop.

And if it goes down, we're protected on the downside from where we're at right now, is what essentially you're saying.

Jarod

Creed: Let's unpack that just from this year's crop. That again, hindsight's 20/20 here. I almost wish that those changes in the Big Beautiful Bull— or not I almost, I wish that they just didn't happen when they did. I wish it came later because it has been nothing but a struggle in a quiet, quiet market to make an attempt at trying to manage that overall revenue picture. You have prices low enough to the point that insurance considerations are big. You have prices low enough that farm program considerations are big. And it— if the farmer had any forward marketing done their risk wasn't that the market went down anymore, it was that it went up because of looking at the total revenue picture.

Shay

Foulk: Leaving opportunity on the table.

Jarod

Creed: And, but significant amount of opportunity. So you take that into consideration of next year. So the last 6, 9 months, I mean, could you look at a continuous corn chart? We still have an uptrend. It's just so slow.

Shay

Foulk: Right.

Jarod

Creed: We're 60 cents off, 70 cents off the lows in a continuous corn chart, believe it or not, since about Labor Day. Does it feel like that? Probably not, but it is. You, so you, you try to keep all those pieces into consideration to make sure that on a rally, my revenue doesn't go lower. You think that into next year, we always have hindsight risk of, did I not sell enough when it was high, or did I sell too much when it was cheap? Now those stakes are significantly elevated because if I market something that I feel is at a profit at today's prices, for next year, I lose the opportunity to market that at a higher price. And in the event the market does go higher and stays there, I've removed additional revenue that at today's prices is already on the table.

The farmer already has a Title I ARC County or PLC check written to them for delivery October of 2027 for the crop that they will harvest next year. Yeah, it's just how much is it going to be? If the market goes lower, it's higher. If the market goes higher, it's less. If the market goes higher and I've already sold something, I'm not getting hit once, I'm getting hit twice. So it's not some type of chump change consideration here that if I miss out on— I sell 100,000 bushel out of 300,000 I'm going to raise and the market's a dollar higher, I didn't just miss out on that $100,000 of what I sold, I'm also taking away $150,000 to $175,000 from a farm program a day for next year. Yep.

I, I didn't gain what I could have on the physical grain as that money went away, and it just, again, it escalates itself once we get to an insurance situation in February, that we can revisit this in 2 or 3 months. Maybe markets do go high enough that it's all irrelevant, but there's a legitimate argument that if we get to an insurance price of around $4.80 to $5, the farmer gets an opportunity to sell some of that. Farmer adapts to the 95% county-based, massively subsidized programs you become a cheerleader that corn drops because that's where you make the most money. And on the other side, corn goes higher, well, what's my inputs going to do? What's land going to do? What's equipment going to do? What conversation— they don't be having in 2030. Imagine a move to $5.50 to $6 for an 18-month period.

We're going to be recreating the wheel of the environment we are in right now all over again come 2030.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah. Well, this— and to your point, like I said, this whole conversation kind of went a little different than I thought, but it's a great conversation in the sense that the marketing complexity and unwrapping all this stuff that you just talked about in the Christmas season is understanding where the revenue is coming from, that it's not just the market, that there's all of these other components. And like it or not, we're in a situation where we have to navigate that stuff whether we want to or not. And I know most of us don't want to. I for one would much rather just be able to market my grain and not have to worry about all that stuff. But all these other complexities, like you said, inflation, the impact on the cost side, all those things complicate it to where the government has decided for whatever reason to step in.

And, um, and it— I've been a fan of it on the, on the risk management side, on the insurance side, but you know, some of these things that where these dollars and cents are coming when they come later. The conversation, like you said, with the lender, really sitting down and looking at that cash flow and saying, okay, what works from the physical cash, the physical inventory? What— how do I navigate that so I can, like you said, bridge myself to the next spot to where I can market? And I think some people are going to have to pull the trigger on some stuff. You know, for just purely cash flow reasons. We've seen enough burning, you know, working capital burn rate has been pretty extensive in some instances. But I still think it goes back to, you know, like you said, that 50-cent rally, it's having a target in there, because that's what happened to beans a few weeks ago here.

We had an opportunity for a real short period of time to dump a bunch of beans, and hindsight's 20/20. So it's not throwing any rocks in a glass house here, but that was probably an opportunity for a really short period of time to pull the trigger and then step back again. And so I think there's just a lot of complexity here, and I think a lot of the things you've brought to the table in this conversation are important. I think again, people need to probably go back and listen to your, um, your illustration— I was going to call it a rant— but your, your illustration of what we need to be cognizant of because it's counterintuitive.

Jarod

Creed: Yep, yep. I mean, you think about like one of my first comments— beans are going to come in, in the year, out of the year, probably within a 20-30 cent range. Yeah, corn's going to come in the year, out of the year, probably in a 5-10 cent bushel difference. Okay, not range, but it's going to be relatively close. The battle along the way has been tough. I remember at Top— not Top Producer, but, um, your, um, Ag View Executive Business Conference. I made a comment that, uh, could already see the writing on the wall with some of this stuff. It was going to be a tough year to be short, to be sold. And in all reality, in hindsight, a guy would have sold it all for $450, $460, $470. The game changed in the middle of the growing season, says, I do not need to be sold anymore because my risk is the other side. Well, that'd be awfully easy if you could do that year in, year out.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah. It's weird how hindsight's 20/20.

Jarod

Creed: Well, it's all hindsight 20/20, but what do you learn from it? I want to make sure that everybody understands this. It's not a bulletproof strategy. I don't have a bulletproof strategy because quite frankly, nothing's worked worth a damn in the last 3 to 6 months. Um, you get market volatility introduce itself, um, more fun things can happen, but I'm not I'm advocating for volatility that includes up and down is the best thing that happens for the farmer. So most people just sit there and say, how in the world are you advocating that you want the market to go up and then you want to go back down? The math checks out.

And so one last piece just to consider, oh, this total revenue that I'm generating, there are probably more individuals— again, let's just take the I-80 swath, not to exclude others, but you get in an I-80 swath of Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and such, even include Minnesota here, there are probably more farms that have on the corn side equivalent of $150 to $200 an acre from this, whatever this tariff relief payment is going to be, if they had any type of ECO or margin type of coverage.

Shay

Foulk: Depending on—

Jarod

Creed: and depending on their yields, depending on the yields. But the price drop was significant enough in the spring to the fall that there's going to be probably more counties that max out on ECO than not. And then you combine that with what the farm program payment's going to be, that's a challenge when I have $900 an acre of physical grain revenue in the bin or some of it sold, but I've got another $150 to $200 an acre coming to me in 3 or 4 different installments over the next 10 months. That's, that's, it's a, it's a compelling conversation. It is not a strategy yet.

Shay

Foulk: And I think a lot of people don't even want to have the conversation that we just had because We don't want it to be that way, but reality is reality, right? It's kind of the way the system is. We're gonna have to play that game. You know, we're, we're, you know, we're in the middle of it. We don't have a choice.

Jarod

Creed: So, yep.

Shay

Foulk: So, well, hey, I think this has been a good conversation. I think we'll kind of wrap it up there. And, um, you know, like I said, it— this kind of went a little different than what I thought, but I think it was a really good, um, way to kind of think about the marketing and, and, you know, to make sure that those targets are in play if we do have that big bump. And because a lot of times those bumps are quick. And I would argue, I, you know, it's hard for me to think that we're going to have much strength in the markets, you know, just because of the inventory that's out there. And, and so I think that, you know, when there's some opportunities there—

Jarod

Creed: don't forget, don't forget our good friend Pete Meyer saying demand rallies are meant to be respected. Supply scare rallies are meant to be sold.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah.

Jarod

Creed: And we haven't had a weather scare for quite a while, right? But we could be, especially in corn, we could be on the front end, front edge of a demand-led rally, both domestically and a continued growth of demand in Brazil.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, well, time will tell, right? Always. Yeah. Yeah. Well, hey, thanks a lot. Really appreciate your conversation and Hopefully you guys got a lot out of this. And also on behalf of everybody at Ag View Solutions, and I think with you guys too, Jared, we want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and enjoy time with family. And that's, again, that's why we do what we do, right? Absolutely. It's for the family and recognizing the importance of the season and kind of why we celebrate it. It's not just Christmas presents and stuff, it's about family and and some of the more important things that God brought us. So with that said, we really appreciate it. Thank you guys for listening. We'll catch you again next time on the Ag View Pitch.