The Ever.Ag Podcast

From the Furrow – Tanner Ehmke – May 21, 2024


Listen Later

In our weekly series From the Furrow, host Mike McGinnis and fellow grain geeks shed light on current market conditions and how grain producers can take action to manage their risk.

This week, Mike is joined by Tanner Ehmke, Lead Economist, Grains and Oilseeds with CoBank. Are grain producers optimistic for the future? What’s likely ahead for markets heading into summer? Mike and Tanner discuss those topics and a whole lot more.

Questions or comments? Topics you’d like to hear us discuss? Contact us at [email protected].

Show Transcript

(Transcript auto-generated)

00;00;00;13 – 00;00;15;00

VOICEOVER
Future training involves risk and is not suitable for all investors. Content providers in the segment is meant for educational purposes and is not a solicitation to buy or sell commodities. Opinions and statements of guests not affiliated with ever eg are their own and do not reflect the views of the brand. The accuracy of their statements cannot be guaranteed by ever.ag

00;00;16;23 – 00;00;36;07

MIKE
Hello and welcome to the from the furrow brought to you by ever eg insights. Each week we talk with subject matter experts on news and topics affecting the grain markets. I’m your host, Mike mcginnis. Let’s get started with a review of the markets today. It’s tuesday, May 21st, 2024. And we’re seeing some pressure actually a turnaround. Tuesday is what’s happening here.

00;00;36;07 – 00;00;59;24

MIKE
We had higher markets to start the week, the July corn futures down three and a quarter cents at 457. New crop, December down three at 481. The July soybean contract down $0.14 today at 1234. The new crop, November down eight and a quarter at 1208. And the July wheat contract is up a penny at 689. Wheat has been driving the ag markets lately.

00;00;59;24 – 00;01;21;15

MIKE
It started the week up 5.75% after giving back some today anyway, as we just mentioned. Meanwhile, corn started the week up 1.75%. And again, it’s really been supported by the wheat market and that’s why we have our guest today. He is the wheat expert, what you might just call a small town Kansas wheat boy. We’re going to talk to him about it.

00;01;21;19 – 00;01;27;23

MIKE
Tanner, He’s now the lead economist for Grain and Oilseeds with Kobach and Tanner, thanks for joining us today.

00;01;27;25 – 00;01;29;20

TANNER
Well, thanks for having me. Make it good to be here.

00;01;29;24 – 00;01;45;17

MIKE
Well, you’re just the person to talk to right now because wheat is all the rage. It’s leading the ag markets for a number of reasons. And we want to tap your brain to see what your perspective is on really what seems to be affecting the wheat market. And that is the inclement weather in Russia that’s affecting their wheat crop.

00;01;45;17 – 00;02;02;19

MIKE
A lot of folks in the wheat sector are talking about the Kansas wheat crop, started out with some problems and maybe got some rain. And of course, there was a wheat tour that went through that area. And you can give us an update on that as well. You know, again, around the world, wheat in in Argentina, that country is maybe seeing some problems as well.

00;02;02;19 – 00;02;07;12

MIKE
So give us an update, kind of go around the world, so to speak, if you would, with an update on wheat.

00;02;07;12 – 00;02;35;10

TANNER
Yeah, well, like you said, Mike, it really is all about Russia. They had expectations for another very big crop on expanded acreage with tailwind of a very weak currency. But that story really started changing several weeks ago. The rain really just shut off in their most important wheat growing region in the southwestern part of the country. That’s that region between the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea and Ukraine, and that is the Garden of Eden, if you will, for wheat production.

00;02;35;10 – 00;02;56;00

TANNER
And the Russians had over the last couple of years phenomenal yields on expanded acreage in the wheat currency, like you mentioned. And that fundamentally changed the wheat market even when we had tight stocks around the world, we had drought here in the U.S. we had a very small Kansas crop, we had a smaller Argentine crop, we had reduction in the Australian crop.

00;02;56;00 – 00;03;15;26

TANNER
Canada had their struggles just around the world. We were seeing shrinking supply in an environment of growing demand and you would think that this would be setting prices up to rally. But we got the opposite. Ever since Russia ended in Ukraine, prices have been falling up until recently, that is, and that’s been a head scratcher for a lot of people.

00;03;15;26 – 00;03;35;16

TANNER
How can the market ignore what’s going on around the world? Well, it was really just all about Russia. The story has really just been about the Russian crop, because not only did they have record production, but they had that currency damage and that’s been holding values down globally. So really it’s about Russia. And now the story is changing on their production.

00;03;35;16 – 00;03;57;07

TANNER
It’s been hot and dry and now you’ve got some freeze damage as well. So it’s really kind of been the strike factor impacting the Russian crop at a time when global wheat stocks are historically tight outside of China. And we got to strip out the Chinese numbers because about half the world wheat stocks are in China. We’re looking at the tightest stocks to use ratio globally since about 2000.

00;03;57;14 – 00;04;15;10

TANNER
So it’s taken a drought in a freeze in Russia for the market to really waking up to this idea that, geez, we’re short on stocks, where are we going to go get the wheat? And so now we’re in that environment of the market waking up to this fact. I should also add into this, there’s been some growing problems in Europe as well.

00;04;15;12 – 00;04;36;04

TANNER
The French crop, they’re the number one producer in the British crop. Also, those markets kind of trade in the same territories. They trade into that North African Middle Eastern market, and that’s really the center of the world wheat market. And so you’ve got these two major producers, Europe and Russia, that are now struggling with production. And so now we’re seeing quite a change in the tenor of the world wheat market.

00;04;36;07 – 00;04;42;28

MIKE
You know, one of my favorite stats is somewhere in the world there’s a wheat crop coming out of the fields every month.

00;04;43;04 – 00;04;43;20

TANNER
That’s right.

00;04;43;20 – 00;04;56;03

MIKE
And so the wheat market has a lot of, you know, crop issues to trade. You can talk about Argentina not being a major wheat producer, but still the weather problems that they’re having is also getting mentioned with analysts on this wheat rally.

00;04;56;03 – 00;05;18;28

TANNER
Yeah, and that just kind of compounds the situation. What’s going on? The world cannot afford to have any more losses. And so USDA’s estimate on the Argentinian problem, I think is up a little bit, a couple of million tonnes last year. But, you know, as things go with El Nino cycle, that’s changing for Argentina right now. We got to keep our eye on where this is going with the Russian crop and we can’t afford any more losses.

00;05;18;28 – 00;05;36;06

TANNER
The U.S. is probably going to be benefiting from this. Ultimately, Mike, we have a much bigger crop or we will have a much bigger crop compared to where we were last year. And that would ordinarily be bearish on prices. But the fact is we’re going to be experiencing probably a more robust export program than what USDA is currently forecasting.

00;05;36;06 – 00;05;55;07

TANNER
If things continue to play out globally on the tight stocks, we’re not seeing that yet. You look at where we are and global prices are. SLB prices for wheat are still well above Russia. We don’t even come close. The last number I saw for Russian exports was about 25 to 30. A ton in U.S. TRW at the Gulf is like 290.

00;05;55;08 – 00;06;13;22

TANNER
So we’re still at a disadvantage here. I’ve heard whispers of Russian wheat going as high as 50 in the Black Sea, and it’s going to be hard to be competitive around the world. Are they going to start losing some of their competitiveness around the world? We hope to gain from that, especially in the Mexican market. Mike I think that’s where we’ve lost a lot of our advantage.

00;06;13;22 – 00;06;25;13

TANNER
We’ve got that trade advantage right into the Mexican market and the Russians have been taking that from us. And so the upside here for the U.S. producer is that over time we will be gaining back to our Mexican business for us.

00;06;25;16 – 00;06;44;18

MIKE
Well, let’s talk about the U.S. wheat crop. There was a wheat tour just last week throughout Oklahoma, Kansas, in parts of Texas, I believe, maybe parts of Nebraska, as well. But I’m sure that you have kept your eye on that wheat tour and probably do on an annual basis. I know you’ve been on it before. Give us a feel for how the results came out of that tour and what does it mean?

00;06;44;19 – 00;07;03;18

TANNER
I was a little surprised, actually. So the Kansas Wheat tour came up with a yield estimate of 46 and a half bushels per acre. That is a phenomenal increase. Last year I think it was 30, just a phenomenal improvement. Now, that’s not to downplay what’s going on in much of the western part of the state. There’s farmers that are already calling their insurance adjusters because they’re not going to be harvesting a wheat crop.

00;07;03;18 – 00;07;21;02

TANNER
A lot of the improvement is happening further east in the state in an expanded acreage. And so I think we’ve got a story here where the Kansas crop is going to be a lot bigger than what some it anticipated. I was talking with some other people in the trade and they’re forecasting now a Kansas crop of over 300 million bushels.

00;07;21;03 – 00;07;39;03

TANNER
That’s a big increase last year to a one, just a huge increase. I think the tour has about 20 million more than what USDA has and USDA has about 68. So it looks like this is probably going to be if we get some more rains, we get some timely rains here, we might finish the crop out well, and we’re going have a bigger, much bigger crop than what we had last year.

00;07;39;03 – 00;07;56;13

TANNER
And then the Oklahoma crop, I’ve heard nothing but good news about the Oklahoma crop this year. It’s been phenomenal. Nebraska is going to be up. It looks like Colorado is going to be up. And so total RW production is going to be pretty big increase over last year, probably over 700 million tons. Some are saying probably well more than that, probably 720.

00;07;56;15 – 00;08;15;00

TANNER
I’m a little bit more conservative on that, but compared to last year, it’s a phenomenal increase. So I think we are setting up here at the right time to have more bushels to trade when the world is tight. And I think the Kansas Wheat tour typically is pretty good, at least establishing what the trend is going to be before USDA comes out with their final numbers.

00;08;15;00 – 00;08;31;01

TANNER
So yeah, it looks like it’s a much better crop this year than last year. That’s better than what I was. I was figuring I was sorry the crop was more like 250 because of higher abandonment rates and higher cattle prices and what have you to increase graze out. But I think a lot of other people see things. Otherwise it’s going to be a pretty big harvest.

00;08;31;08 – 00;08;54;16

MIKE
With, you know, the corn market looking for some reason to go higher and wheat has given it that support. Now you have your finger on the pulse of agriculture and the financial state of farmers. We recently had the AG Barometer, that’s CME for the latest results of the ag barometer that reads the sentiment of farmers. It plunged to the lowest, I believe, plunged 15 points in April, the lowest since June of 2022.

00;08;54;16 – 00;09;12;02

MIKE
Farmers are saying that they’re not believing that the farmland prices are going to stay up their farm. Financials for their their farm themselves. They believe that’s not going to be as good this year. Give us your feel. I’m also hearing a recent study that showed an uptick in farm loan requests. So do you see that to be true?

00;09;12;02 – 00;09;14;28

MIKE
Do you see this to be a concern that the farmer sentiment is falling?

00;09;14;28 – 00;09;39;05

TANNER
Yeah, this is something that we have been anticipating, I think across the industry with commodity prices, haven’t come back fair amount over the past year and production costs have not followed suit, not yet anyway. Reduction costs are pretty slow to follow the commodity prices. So this is that pinch point of the year where production costs are still fairly high, record high in some cases, and commodity prices are coming back quite quickly and that’s showing up in the survey.

00;09;39;05 – 00;10;07;04

TANNER
The agreement of survey, which by the way I think it’s Purdue who puts it on. Yeah, like you said, it’s farmer is obviously down in farm credit. We’re hearing reports of that as well that as you mentioned, there’s been an uptick in loan requests and that’s not a surprise there. I think the concern here, Mike, is what happens more like when we get into 2025, 2026, working capital starts to be eroded over this period and farmers are carrying over a fair amount of cash in most instances to the last couple of years, a very healthy net farm income.

00;10;07;04 – 00;10;25;18

TANNER
And so that’s been a important buffer for farmers, is having that extra cash in the bank and also extra bushels. The grain bin has been a boost as well if they had the bushels at higher prices. But working capital is also not just a function of what’s in your bank account, but what can be easily converted into cash like the grain in the rain bin.

00;10;25;18 – 00;10;43;09

TANNER
And if the price of commodities is coming down, their working capital is going to roll even further. And so I think it’s that double whammy there, Mike, that is causing farmers really to be a little bit more down on the year ahead. Perhaps we have some more issues like over in Russia, weather events outside of the United States because commodity prices to come higher.

00;10;43;10 – 00;10;45;29

TANNER
Hopefully you’ve got a little bit more buffer tomorrow.

00;10;46;01 – 00;10;57;21

MIKE
We’ll see how the month of May ends and if we can get the planting progress going in the month of June, as farmers would like. Well, we always, always appreciate your perspective, Tanner, and thank you again for joining us today.

00;10;57;25 – 00;10;58;25

TANNER
Absolutely. Mike, anything.

00;10;58;25 – 00;11;12;23

MIKE
If you’ve enjoyed listening to From the Fur, be sure to tell a friend or two and subscribe to us wherever you listen to your podcast, we thank Tanner. MK Again, the Economist with Co Bank and also thanks to the ever AG Insights crew for their work on today’s show.

Disclaimer: TRADING FUTURES AND OPTIONS ON FUTURES INVOLVES SIGNIFICANT RISK OF LOSS AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERYONE. THEREFORE, CAREFULLY CONSIDER WHETHER SUCH TRADING IS SUITABLE FOR YOU IN LIGHT OF YOUR FINANCIAL CONDITION. PAST RESULTS ARE NOT INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. THE INFORMATION AND COMMENTS CONTAINED HEREIN ARE PROVIDED BY EVER.AG AS GENERAL COMMENTARY OF MARKET CONDITIONS. THIS INFORMATION SHOULD NOT BE INTERPRETED AS TRADING ADVICE OR RECOMMENDATION WITHOUT FURTHER DISCUSSION WITH YOUR EVER.AG ADVISOR. THIS IS A MATTER OF SOLICITATION.
EVER.AG INSURANCE SERVICES IS A LICENSED INSURANCE AGENCY AND AN AFFILIATE OF EVER.AG. INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN IN THIS WEBSITE IS COMPILED FOR THE CONVENIENCE OF THE USER. INFORMATION IS OBTAINED FROM SOURCES BELIEVED TO BE RELIABLE AND IS FURNISHED WITHOUT RESPONSIBILITY FOR ACCURACY OR CONTENT. MARKET DATA IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AT ANY TIME. Ever.Ag is a licensed insurance agency in the following states: AZ, CA, CO, CT, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NM, NY, NC, ND, OK, OH, OR, PA, RI, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY.


The following music was used for this media project:
Music: Funky Intro 29 by TaigaSoundProd
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/9520-funky-intro-29
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist website: https://linktr.ee/taigasoundprod
© Ever.Ag 2023, confidential and proprietary.

The post From the Furrow – Tanner Ehmke – May 21, 2024 appeared first on .

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

The Ever.Ag PodcastBy Ever.Ag

  • 5
  • 5
  • 5
  • 5
  • 5

5

5 ratings


More shows like The Ever.Ag Podcast

View all
The Ramsey Show by Ramsey Network

The Ramsey Show

39,022 Listeners

The EntreLeadership Podcast by Ramsey Network

The EntreLeadership Podcast

4,398 Listeners

AgriTalk by AgriTalk

AgriTalk

152 Listeners

AgriTalk PM by Farm Journal Media

AgriTalk PM

132 Listeners

The Dividend Cafe by The Bahnsen Group

The Dividend Cafe

582 Listeners

The Business of Agriculture Podcast by Damian Mason

The Business of Agriculture Podcast

122 Listeners

The Milk Check by T.C. Jacoby & Co. - Dairy Traders

The Milk Check

21 Listeners

Progressive Dairy Podcast by Progressive Dairy editors

Progressive Dairy Podcast

19 Listeners

Dairy Defined by National Milk Producers Federation

Dairy Defined

4 Listeners

Grain Markets and Other Stuff by Joe Vaclavik

Grain Markets and Other Stuff

344 Listeners

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg by All-In Podcast, LLC

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

9,862 Listeners

Let's Chat Dairy by HighGround Dairy

Let's Chat Dairy

16 Listeners

The Dairy Download by IDFA

The Dairy Download

27 Listeners

Barn Talk by Tork and Sawyer Whisler

Barn Talk

1,649 Listeners

Dairy Insights: Heard Mentality by StoneX Group Inc.

Dairy Insights: Heard Mentality

8 Listeners