RealAg Radio: USDA predictions, equipment decisions, and fertilizer movement, Aug 14, 2024

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It's time for real ag radio on rural radio channel147 on siriusxm.

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Welcome to Reel Ag Radio here on Rural Radio 147. SiriusXM Sean Haney, your host here on this Wednesday midweek edition of the show. Hey, thanks so much everybody for making Real Life Radio and Rural Radio 147 a big part of your work day. And as always, a big shout out to relistening out there as well on the Real Lag Radio podcast. Well, we're gonna, we're gonna break down what exactly is going on here in the world of agriculture. Two big things come to mind this week. One, we had the report, a USDA report on Monday and some of the impacts of that. We got Chip Flory here, host of Agri Talk, to break down the market situation. We're going to focus really on corn and beans because that, that is the over, you know, kind of gives broader context for the overall market complex. A little bit about spring wheat as well. I gotta, I gotta ask him what do we, what do we think going forward from a spring week perspective? Then what we're also going to do. We're here from Karen Proud. She's the president and CEO of Fertilizer Canada. We've been talking a lot about the grain movement, but we haven't been talking about some of the, the bad things that can happen from a fertilizer movement perspective if this strike actually happens. Here's the concerning thing. Hearing rumors that anhydrous ammonia is already not moving. The strike is like nine days away, nine, ten days away and we're already seeing an embargo there. So that's a very concerning thing for sure. As we get a little bit closer to fall fertilization. A lot of you out there use anhydrous ammonia for your fertilizer plants. We're also gonna hear today from recent interview that Chase Chambers of the Real Agriculture team did at Ag Smart. He, Troy chased, sorry, talked to Troy Aberly, he is with Ag Powerhouse talking about what are the main, the, the critical components that go into the purchasing decision of farm equipment. Where does price sit? Where does service sit from from a priority standpoint? We're going to hear some of Troy's thoughts on that and we're also going to share a little bit of data at the end relative to the rail strike and your concerns that you have if this is actually going to happen. Now if you have any feedback on today's show, we'd love to hear from you. You can send me an email shaneeyeal agriculture.com you can also find Real Agriculture across all the different social media applications. You're also more than welcome to call the Real Life Feedback line. That number is 855-776-6147. Got a note from an audience member saying, hey, I think something's wrong with the podcast of this show. There was no shows last week and it didn't load into my podcast app. Here's the thing, there was no shows last week. We took the week off. So it was a holiday. We took a mandatory company holiday the first week of August. First thing we've ever tried. It actually went spectacularly well. Had a lot of good feedback from the real Ag team. It was, it was nice. It worked out pretty good. Something maybe you should consider in, in your companies if it works out and you can make it all a go. I think a lot of people do it at Christmas. We decided to do it for a week in the, in the summer months because that first week, August is always a little bit of a slow time in the world of agriculture and a lot of people off hard to get interviews anyway and people want to take it off to try to get away, maybe get to the lake or the cottage or the cabin. So we did that. And so there was no shows last week. But hey, here's the good news. We got new shows every day this week. So there, there's a, there's a gift back to you. Hey, we're gonna take a break. When we come back, we got Chip Flory, host of Agri Talk. He'll be with us right after this.

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And welcome back to Real AG Radio. Hey. The best answer for agronomically effective dual nitrogen production protection, of course, is super you premium fertilizer from Coke Agronomic Services. Learn how this ready to use granular fertilizer protects nitrogen and boosts efficiency. Visit cokegg.ca. let's talk markets. There's a lot happening, no doubt, especially with the report earlier this week. Joining us right now is Chip Flory, host of Agri Talk. Chip, how are you doing?

Doing good, John. How about you, buddy?

Hey, man, I'm doing pretty good.

You excited about the back end of baseball season here?

Yeah, yeah, actually, I am. We've lost two in a row. The Cubs have lost two in a row. But we've got this team coming in from the, from the American League east that I think we should be able to handle pretty well.

Mostly everybody has.

Of course, my Toronto Blue Jays. Okay. We had a report on Monday.

Surprise.

I. Yeah, actually, I was surprised.

By a couple of things. Number one, that USDA made as many adjustments on the acres as they did. And I understand they took a look at the Farm Service Agency certified acreage data. They implemented that for the second year now. I get all of that. But to actually see the adjustments to the acreage on a somewhat timely basis I think is probably a surprise to a lot of people. So they took more than 700,000 acres off of the corn crop. They added about a million acres to the bean crop. And, and the net gain in acres is what I was anticipating.

I just, I didn't think that we had counted all the acres yet. So a net gain is what I wanted to see.

Yeah. And it, you know, we move some acres from corn to soybeans. Because of some late plantings in the northwest production areas.

Man. What about the, what about the yield side of the equation? That.

That big?

Yeah.

183.1, 225 bushels per acre out of Illinois. That's. Those are huge numbers. And we're expected to do the 183.1 for a national average corn yield without help from the Southeast. There are some areas that are a dud, and I didn't think that we could do a 183 with some areas being a dud. And here we are. Because the Corn belt states are as good as what. What they are. Record yields in Indiana, Illinois and Iowa are going to build that yield up pretty quick. You got to throw Nebraska into the mix there. South Dakota, Minnesota coming in the same as it was a year ago at 185 bushels per acre. That seems a little optimistic. But we can't forget that Minnesota had some really, really bad yields in the southeast part of the state, which is typically a year ago had really bad yields in the southeast part of the state, which is typically a really good yielding part of the state. So.

I, you know. 183.1. I would like to think, oh, that's the biggest number we're going to see all year and go through that whole process. But I don't know if we can do that because the condition of the crop is holding on. We continue to get rains through August, the cooler than normal temperatures. As the crop is filling kernels is going to extend that kernel fill period. And if you extend the kernel fill period, all you're doing is giving the kernels more time to gain weight. And weight is yield. And it.

It'S hard, it's hard to say too much negative about, about this corn crop and then the bean crop. 53.2 bushels per acre, 7/10 of a bushel above trade expectations. There's some big yields out there. Illinois at 66. Wow. That's. That's a big, big number coming out of Illinois. So the question is, can Illinois hold on to what it's built? And we'll, we'll figure that out as time goes on.

Well, and you're going to get a good look at it here very shortly because you got crop tour. Is that next week already?

Next week already. Yes.

Time flies. Yeah, you're gonna get a, you're gonna get a firsthand look at a lot of these acres and I guess you'll be able to give us a bit of an indication, you know, hey, take the under or like you said. Oh, boy. Yeah, there's some. Yeah, it's pretty good out there.

Yeah, exactly. And we'll get that figured out. You know, I think.

Sean, the bottom line is for the corn and soybean crops that have made it to this point.

They'Ve had what they need to put on good yield, to put on a big ear, to fill pods. They've had what they need. So the question is how many ears are out there and how much of the soybean factory is up and running. How many pods in a three by three foot square. And we'll, we'll get the answers to that. And we can't forget that, that it was a doggone difficult planning season for a lot of areas and that might have hurt the ear population just a little bit in some of these states. So we'll see if the ears are out there. If there's one number that I really, really trust from, from crop tour, if I had to break it all down, it would be the ear population numbers. That gives us a really good idea of, of how, of how much of the factory is up and running one year to the next.

Yeah, the historical information you build, you, you're able to extrapolate. Okay, you know what, I kind of believe what we're, what the reports are saying versus like, okay, there's some doubt there. Right. So that historical stuff is, is very, very valuable. So I guess not to be negative about this, but we've got a, we've got some production potentially to deal with. So.

How does I keep on going back to this word burden? How does this burden the market? But that's kind of the word that comes to mind.

You know, corn, I think has been getting used to this number for quite some time because we've got a 20, 24, 25 corn carryover projection or forecast just under 2.1 billion bushels. And we've been factoring that in for quite some time. I think that's why the, the December contract is finding some support. Just under four bucks. Beans are a different story. You look at that carryover projection for the 21st 4, 25 marketing year at 560 million bushels, the market had no idea that it was going to be dealing with a carryover projection that high.

You know, just on Monday morning, Monday morning of this week, the market didn't know that it was going to be dealing with that. So after two days of steep losses in bean prices, Tom, we did catch a bid in the overnight trade. Did trade a little bit higher. We'll see if that turns into some price gains that, that the market can hold on to through the day. But, but longer term, longer term, just the simple fact that we got down into that 950 range in the Novi beans and did find an ability to bounce, I think that's very important for us going forward.

Yeah, I think you got to take some pause. I agree with you. I think you got to take some positivity in the fact that corn has not, you know, trounced to the downside based on this news. Right. Because that, that would be the easy trade or the, the easy bet that a lot of people would make. And there's, there's a lot of analysts. You've talked to the same people, too. They've got a lot lower expectation for that December corn future than where we're at here today.

Technically, for the, the rest that we got Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week. What needs to happen in the corn trade for you to feel good about us hanging close to this four.

Close above four bucks in the days? If we can close the week above four bucks in the decent, I'm going to feel pretty positive about it. You know, the like. Like I said, we took those harvested acreage out of the mix and we added in the yield. So the net result on the corn crop was only a 47 million bushel increase from the July projection. So it's not like all of a sudden we got 150 more million bushels more of beans. That's a big change. 50 million bushels of corn. Yeah. We ought to be able to absorb that with, with, with what the market already had built into, into prices. But boy, soybeans, that's, that's a different story. Yeah.

And if you look at that November soybean chart and you go back to, oh, about, I don't know, well, May, middle of May, we, we have. Oh boy, we have since like the May 23rd. We were about 1215, 1217. And like you said, we're down in that 965, taking two and a half bucks off of it.

Yeah.

That's substantial.

Oh, it certainly is. And that's what you get when you go through a couple of months of the booking season and not get a lot of attention from China. That's what you get when you get those big rains during pod fill and cool temperatures during pod fill across the ice states. It's, it's, it's like there, here comes your burdensome word. Yeah. Again. Because it is starting to feel like the supply is burdensome. And not only that, Sean, but it feels like it's snowballing and it's going to be a big factor on what the acreage mix is going to be in 2025.

Yeah, good point. On, on, on that one. China's been, you know, giving South America the attention from a buying perspective where, where the Brazilian and Argentine beans were going. Has the US not been able to grab some of that or is it just not significant enough to make up the difference?

Well, Brazil is producing enough beans to steal market share from the US and continue to satisfy the needs of the bulk of the needs from its traditional customers. So it's the expansion of the Brazilian production that's a real problem. And, and I think it's going to continue to be a problem. You know, they will expand their acres. I don't think there's much question about that for, for the next crop. But, but it, the Brazilian producer is still sensitive to.

The margin that that farming generate. And if you're looking at negative margins, it will hold back their expansion on acres for the 2025 harvest. I just don't think there's any question about that. But still, nonetheless, I would anticipate that, that Brazil is going to grow more acres of soybeans for 2025 and, and do everything that they can to take as much market share away from the US as they can. It's a, you know, it's a big part of the reason why we are looking to quote unquote, domesticate the soybean market, Sean, with, by expanding the crush and, and pushing more soybean oil into the biofuels market, which now all of a sudden it looks like some of our biggest biofuel markets want to put a cap on just how much soybean oil can be used in the production of the fuel for them.

So to wrap up chip strategy wise, what, what do you, what do you suggest to growers at this point in time? Everybody's situation individually is different. From a broad stroke perspective, what should, what's going to be rattling through growers minds as they think about their marketing on the 24 crop?

Okay, the bean market has made an adjustment. Since we got the August production and supply and demand reports, we took about 45 cents, something like that, off of soybean prices. So that is a major adjustment. Now that we've made that adjustment, let's give it just a little bit of time and to, to settle in at this new pricing level and see if we can't find some, some support right where we're at watch the four dollar level. Actually 397 is, is kind of the number. And if you want to get optimistic, 403, that's how tight these support and resistance levels are. If at the end of the week we can close above 403, I think that's really positive for this for December corn. And it will make me start to think that we've got a chance at a short covering rally in this corn market. The funds are still heavily short corn and soybeans. That's been the story for a long time. At some point you got to think that there would be a profit taking short covering rally that would. That will happen in corn and soybeans. It's just a question of from what level does it start. If we can start it from current levels, let's give it a little bit of time before we get too much more aggressive on making sales. But be ready, be ready. If you get a 20, 25 cent pop in corn, that's something that you should be looking to sell. If we get back the bulk of what we've lost out of soybeans the past two days, that's a rally that you should be looking to sell.

Are all the other commodities kind of watching corn it like right at this point. Like I know that's traditionally a rule, we need corn to lead us higher. But is that.

I think that's. I think that's true to a certain extent. But wheat seems to be kind of in a world all by itself doing.

We've got things.

Yeah. Doing weak things. The. The spring wheat crop is a good crop, but maybe just not as good as what they had anticipated.

And then.

We. We've seen movement of Ukrainian troops onto Russian soil. We've seen a relocation of Russian troops away from offensive positions to defensive positions. It. This is a. I think it's a bigger deal than what the market is giving it.

Credit for at this point. Sean. It. It for the first time in.

Four years. Geez. I guess it is four years. For the first time in four years it feels like the Russia, Ukraine situation could be a disruption to grain movement going forward. Yeah.

You mentioned not as good of a springly crop as maybe some anticipated. I think that's what we're going to find out of Western Canada too. Right. There's a lot of optimism of what yields could be six years, you know, six, seven weeks ago. But temperature turned up, moisture went away and I think the heat's gonna have an impact on some of the crops. So there, there. But again that, that a positive reaction may be short term. So be ready, be ready, be ready.

Yep. And. And even in North Dakota, where the yields are good, the protein levels aren't great is what we're hearing off the early, early harvest of the spring wheat.

Yeah. Okay. Well, hey, Chip, really appreciate you joining us here today.

Anytime, buddy.

Yeah, it's great stuff. Always enjoy our chat. So we'll talk to you Friday on Agri Talk.

Okay, Sounds good, Chuck. Thanks, man.

Hey, we'll be right back on Real Ag Radio right after this.

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Real Ag Radio is Canada's only daily radio show focused on agriculture. Get expert advice on agronomic Monday, Tuesdays and Wednesdays will cover a broad range of issues. Thursday we'll hear from farmers across the country on the Farmer Rabbit Fire and we'll wrap things up Fridays with the Real Ag Issues panel with Kelvin Hepner and Lindsay Smith. Join us Monday through Friday at 4:30 Eastern and don't forget about the replay at 7 in the morning on Rural Radio 147 SiriusXM.

And welcome back to Real Ag Radio. You know, field by field, mazex is bringing Canadian seed to farmers across the country. Maze X is your source for high performance soybeans and grain silage and grazing corn hybrids. Visit mazex.com to find your local Mazex representative. It is great to have Maze X on board as a supporter and sponsor here on Real Ag Radio. So please check them out. That's mazex.com M A I Z Z E X.com Now a couple it's already a couple weeks ago already X Mark was happening in in Olds, Alberta and we sent Chase Chambers from our team down to Olds to to the College and this event has grown in tremendous ways. It was hot, hot, hot, hot. That's one thing I've heard from a lot of the participants. Now, Troy Aberly with Ag Powerhouse, he was on location there and Chase caught up with him to talk about the things to consider when buying equipment. So let's listen to the interview and then we'll discuss some of the points. Hey, welcome back to Real Agriculture. My name is Chase Chambers and today I'm here with Troy Abberley of Ag Powerhouse and we're going to be talking about the top five things to consider when buying equipment for your farm. So first, before we get into it, can we just talk about why these things are important to farmers?

I think that we don't talk enough about the stresses that actually happen at the kitchen table on farms. And what I'm really understanding is over the past nearly two decades of being a part of agriculture, not only as a farmer but also as someone who's sold a lot of products and services in the industry, I'm realizing that there's a lot of things that we're not talking about. We're looking for fancy things, language and commission, breath type tactics that are, you know, how do you get, how do you figure out how to buy something? But I think that there's more to it and there's more stresses now than ever. And these challenges are, are not only causing havoc on our operations today, but also for the future generations that we're trying to attract to run our farms and operations.

Right.

And then do you want to go through just what the five things you should consider are?

Yeah, so, and again, these criterias aren't just for the farmer, it's also for the dealership because I think there needs to be accountability on both. Right now the farmer talks about price being the most important and actually when you do enough research on it. I did a research paper and looking at other research documents were done by other manufacturers and then also interviewing producers and dealers. There's actually five top criterias that are the most important and what came out of finding out what was successful and not so. Number one is actually the availability of parts, parts for your specific piece of equipment in a time that's reasonable so that you can, when you break down or have a challenge that you have a way of getting that part really quickly so that you can be up and running. These things are worth too much money and downtime due to an O ring or a part is extremely frustrating. Number two is that the need for service technicians that are actually trained and on your particular piece of equipment, on the model and everything else. Because there's nothing again worse than having a technician come out to your place or bringing something in and finding out that they've never actually had any experience on your product. And so if the dealership is taking time to get to know who you are and you're taking the time to get to know who the dealership is and talking about the equipment and the service needs that you have, the could be doing a better job at training. So it's having that availability to make sure that that's understood that the dealership you're working with can service those needs. Number three is the need for training. There's more and more training that is becoming more available. Yes. But since the pre pandemic and up till now we've had this challenge where not enough training for the features and products and technologies that we're investing in actually is really fluent on amongst the operators and the ownership of the operators. So if you take a look at a lot of hired men that some people can't have different language barriers, is it one of the factors, but also the fear of asking for help and often can operate something for quite a period of time not really knowing how to do that. And when you go to the dealership, you should be able to find someone who can train. Because of the amount of turnover even in the dealership and those challenges, we're finding that there's more and more opportunities where yeah, we learned something as a team, textbook or in a classroom. But then when we get into the field, a lot of time goes by. Number four, is the price, is the price fair? Clear? Do we understand how to finance it, lease it, which pieces are doing that? And then number five is the need for figuring out what is the total cost of ownership. How much should a piece of equipment cost per hour, per acre, per bushel, per livestock? What are those criterias? And how often do we flip equipment or invest rebuy new used. But understanding that total cost of ownership so that the payment or the amount that's being depreciated matches with what it is that your operation produces.

Awesome.

And is there any of these that are more important than some or that people need to focus on more?

I think all. I think knowing what to buy, when to buy it and how it's going to be maximized to be in the field and do everything it's supposed to do and be supported is all encompassed into one umbrella. Yes. And prices are becoming, you know, very high and equipment purchasing is Very expensive. So as other costs, fertilizer, chemicals, land, you know, for instance, you know, in the example I shared today, land has quadrupled in not very many years. And so right now, as these expenses go up, you're looking at you either need to cut back on costs per acre or you need to grow more acres to be able to account for all of these extra inflated prices. And if you can't figure out neither, you're going to be in a place that sustainability is not going to be a very effective outcome.

What are the final takeaways from a farmer's perspective from this?

I think as we look and notice that there's more and more younger people that would love to farm and they're seeing a lot of excitement. There's new technologies and, and there's a lot of things that are very interesting. And now being able to produce even more food than we've ever known before, I think helping them understand what is the next step, you know, when you take a person who's 15, 16 years old, how do they take that next step? Now, because a lot of farms aren't big enough for multi sets of families, how can we show them how to align themselves with the human resources or the financial experts building a power team so that they could build out a really solid business plan so that it's very clear and concise and that investors or laborers, partners, all of those people, all can come together to build that farm or that dream that that young person has. If we do that, that's going to cause us to get more efficient as a person that's already experienced in the industry. But also then we can start to set some new paradigms and habits for the generations to follow.

Awesome.

Thank you very much. That was Chase Chambers of Real Agriculture talking to Troy Eberly of Powerhouse or Ag Powerhouse, I should say. You know, interesting points. I think there's any surprises there in some of the things that Troy talks about. Parts, quality of service, the training of the farmer on how to use the equipment, the technology that is incorporated in it, price obviously important, and then the total cost of ownership. You know, I think, you know, if you talk to ag deep dealers and if there's egg dealers out there listening to this, it would be great to have your feedback on this. But I, I still think, you know, as much technology that is ending up in this equipment at this point, it really, the old rules haven't changed. The type of service person required or the technician required, that that has changed. But it all still comes down. Hey, when it's broke, can you fix it? Right. And can I rely on you? And if it's Saturday night, middle of harvest at midnight, can I get what I need from a service perspective, but also from that parts perspective? I know during the pandemic there was a lot of talk about parts and availability and those, you know, the supply chains. We, we talked more about supply chains in that period of time than we have ever talked about them before. So I, I, it's, this is a good reminder and what order you put stuff in, that's up to you. But I think there's a pretty good list there of the the five things. So hey, if you have any feedback on that list, we'd love to hear from you. Send me an email. Shaneeyeal Agriculture okay, when we come back on Real Ag Radio, what we're going to do is we're talking to Karen Proud. She is president and CEO of Fertilizer Canada. This rail strike not only hitting grain movement, it's hitting fertilizer movement too. And it's already started, even though we're before August 22nd. What's going on? We'll be right back on Real Life Radio right after this.

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I'm Lindsay Smith from RealAgriculture.com Join me Monday nights for the Agronomists, a one hour live and interactive show broadcast across YouTube, Facebook and X. Monday nights at 8pm Eastern, I host expert agronomists from all over the country to give you answers to some of the toughest agronomic questions. Join us live or catch the replay Tuesday morning. That's the Agronomist with me, Lindsay Smith. Monday nights live at 8pm Eastern.

And welcome back to Real Life Radio. Hey, coming up here. Hey. Next week, hard to believe already, but it's the Canadian Beef Industry Conference. It's happening in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan from August 19th through the 22nd. Yours truly will be there. We're doing a live broadcast of Real Life Radio from the stage. There's going to be networking, keynotes, breakouts, learn how to increase profit, manage rangeland and navigate trends. You can visit Canadian Beef Industry Conference.com for more details and to register. Well, this week we've been talking about this potential of a strike of our two major railways at the same time, which is there's some significant impact that is going to come from this if this all comes to fruition as what is expected. Joining us right now to give the some impact from the fertilizer industry is Karen Proud president and CEO of Fertilizer Canada. Karen, it's great to chat with you again.

Great to chat with you as well, Sean. But I, I wish it wasn't about this.

You know, sometime Karen, we're having the show when there's something not going hell in a hand basket.

Yeah. It seems I've only been in this job for just over three years and it just seems like every six months there's, there's something else that's crazy going on. And, and you know, who knew fertilizer was, was so exciting?

Yeah.

And not for the, not for the.

Good reasons you came into this job. Fertilizer like, come on, we just like put it in the ground and it grows plants. Simple, static, easy. Nothing happens. Yeah, right. Okay, let's get down to serious business here. August 22 is the date that's put on the board. We got a lockout of employees. We got an impasse here. From Fertilizer Canada's perspective, what do you see as the path to a resolution in preventing the strike from happening?

Well, I mean, we really need to get all parties, including our federal government, to get in a room together and agree. Number one, we just can't have this strike happening. We cannot have both railways in Canada going down at the same time. There needs to be some resolution. I mean, we fully support collective bargaining. We agree that it's the best way to come to a long term deal. But the government needs to step up and make sure that, that this strike is prevented and they have the tools to do so. I think we, we need a willingness among all other parties to resolve this.

What does. There's a lot of, especially in western Canada, there's a lot of fall fertilization that happens. So give us some what ifs here. How impactful would both railways not moving cars? What impact would that have on the fertilizer industry and farmers?

Well, I can tell you as of now, ammonia fertilizer is embargoed because we fall under what the, the Canadian Industrial Relations Board.

Sort of determined, you know, products that might be of concern and our products, because they pose a potential inhalation risk, the railways have embargoed those products. So the ammonia products are not moving today. So we may as well be in a strike position right now with regards to those products. And as you said there's a couple of times a year where we, we really rely on, on the availability of ammonia products. That's in the spring and the fall. In particular, our western provinces are more affected because our eastern provinces bring in a lot of product from overseas, but our western provinces rely on the products that are produced in this country. And so if we, if we do not have enough stock at sort of the dis. Distribution areas at retail for farmers, we are stocking up sort of now to replenish stock for the fall. If we don't have enough, it means we miss our fall fertilization timeframe. And as you would know, and as most of your listeners would know, when it comes to fertilizer, we really need that unique window of time before a frost in order to be able to apply fertilizer and have it be effective. And if we lose that window, it means we're going to end up losing productivity next year. And then there's this sort of knock on effect where if we lose productivity next year, there's an effect on production that has an effect on food security, that has a global effect. And it goes on and on from there. And so I think it's not unreasonable to say that any of these disruptions can end up with a significant effect on global food security. There's, there's not a, you know, a tremendous leap from, from fertilizer application to, to food security.

You know, a lot of times we think about rail in Canada, especially from the western perspective, we think, you know, getting product to port. But yes, there is also a huge component of getting product into the country as well. Farm equipment's a good example of that from a fertilizer perspective. Let's think about the going south component of this. What impact does this have on the American farmer and their access to product if these two railways strike?

Well, I mean, I think that's a great question. So we have, yeah, there's many facets to this. So we have the issues that happen in Canada. We've got, we're a huge trading partner to the United States when it comes to fertilizer. That product is shipped.

Primarily by rail down to the U.S. u.S. Farmers are counting on Canadian fertilizer. We are an excellent source of fertilizer. Our members are produce a fantastic fertilizer product. If we're not able to get our fertilizer to the US farmers, It's, it's the same, the same concern. They need to replenish their stock. They're counting on Canadian fertilizer products. We have Written jointly with our U.S. association. A letter to the Prime Minister seeking assistance in this area because the Americans are very concerned about the potential stoppage of our rail lines. And I'm sure not just on fertilizer products, but all products that we ship. And it's really important for Canada to be seen as a reliable trading partner. And when we continue to have these disruptions or even threats of the disruptions, we risk losing our customers. And if I can mention, there's just a great example.

Where last year when we had the port of Vancouver so strike, we ship a quite a lot of our Canadian potash through that port. It's a very important port for us. Now I'm sure you know Canada is the number one supplier of potash in the world. When we were unable to get our product out of that port, we lost customers to Russia.

So every dollar lost from customers buying Canadian product goes to Russia, Belarus or China. And frankly that is, it's not just a shame, you think about how those funds are then going to Russia to support other activities. It's really an abomination that Canada cannot get its product to the world that really is depending on our product, but is being forced to buy product from other countries because they're concerned about feeding their populations.

I, I think one of the, the, the impacts here too is, or the realities is it, it's not like you can the alternatives modes of transport. You, you, you can't put trucks under all this fertilizer that has to go across. Canada has to go to the U.S. you know, it has to go to the port.

It's not feasible, it's not possible. And you know, I had an audience member that had suggested this to me and you know, one of the things that I had mentioned was well, if that's the solution in the short term, think about the emissions that are created from doing something like that kind of in a joking sort of way. But it's not even possible. This, there's reason that we rely on rail because of its ability to move product in such an efficient, cost effective manner and so much volume at one time.

Yeah, I haven't done the math, but I don't think we've got enough trucks in this country to take all the product that was going by rail and ship it by truck. And that's an interesting statement because my understanding is the Canadian Industrial Relation Board that looked at this and was asked to look at whether certain products should be deemed essential.

Came to the decision that no products should be deemed essential and that there were other means of transporting these products and they talked about trucking. Well, there's a lot of products that I think perhaps they didn't consider, although we made a submission to, to the board on behalf of fertilizer. But there's other products that, that just, it's just not feasible to ship it by truck. And you want every industry in this country to ship their products by truck? It's, it's just not, it, it's not.

A viable option from an hydrous ammonia perspective. You gave that example earlier. So right away, farmers, you know, because I've had a couple farmers ask about this very product. Are we in danger of some sort of a shortage situation in the, in the short term here?

Well, it's, it's, it's been embargoed so we're not shipping it. I don't know the state of supply along the supply chain at this, at this time. I have not heard from my retail members yet that there's a concern about the, the supply. But you know, we know that these products are shipped on a regular basis and there's a reason for that. It's, it's, they're being sold overseas, they're being supplied into this country. When you end up with a, a product embargoed like the clock is ticking now. And, and what we also know is that for every day that the product doesn't move, it takes three to five days to get back on track. And you know, I don't want to, to cry wolf because I haven't been told yet that there's a shortage situation, but we can't rule that out. Depending on how long this lasts, how long the embargoes last and what happens on the 22nd.

Okay, to wrap up, are you pushing for binding arbitration here?

We are asking the government to look at binding arbitration. We are also asking, and this is a longer term ask, is to make fertilizer products essential products where they must be moved no matter what. Our contribution to food security I think is clear and our timeliness of meeting this product when, when farmers need it is clear and the government needs to step in and do something.

Karen, really appreciate you joining us here today on Real Ag Radio. All the best to you.

My pleasure. Thank you.

That is Karen Proud, president and CEO of Fertilizer Canada. This strike, I'll tell you, the impacts are wide and they are large. It's, this is a very, very bad situation that is in front of not only Canadian farmers, but the Canadian economy in general. We'll be right back on Real Life Radio right after this.

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And welcome back to Real Ag Radio here on Rural Radio 147 SiriusXM. You know the answer to your above the ground nitrogen loss problem is endless nitrogen stabilizer from Coke Ergonomic Services. To learn how Anvil's dual active ingredients deliver extended protection, visit Coke CA well we've been talking this week about the impacts of the the potential rail strike. Two Canada's two major railways deciding to strike at the same time. Well really not the decision, the railways decision. The union is a component of this but there's a lockout happening now of employees. We heard from Karen Proud here earlier on the show some of the fertilizer like anhydrous ammonia already not moving. So basically the strike has already started for some of these products. This is a bad situation. Bad, bad, bad, bad. And I'm trying not to be too, you know, the world is ending or too hyperbolic. But let's be honest with the way that the Canadian economy relies on the railways. This is a catastrophic economic event that could potentially be happening here in in August. Well obviously you're concerned. Well you should be in in my mind. Let's look at some of the data that.

Farmers answered. We asked them some questions in July. We heard from Justin Funk yesterday in the Canadian about the Canadian Farmer Sentiment Index. But we also asked about some some issues around the rail strike. So across Canada here's what farmers said which the following best describes your overall level of concern regarding an impending rail strike. 26% of you, a quarter of you said you're extremely concerned, 43% said somewhat concerned. When we look at this on an east west basis, it should be no surprise. I think People think of a rail strike a little bit more in agriculture as a western issue. But as we heard from Karen, there's fertilizer as a component of this. Think about propane as well. You need propane to run that grain dryer in the east that's being transported by rail. So there is. There is some eastern ramifications on this. But 80% of Western Canadian growers said that they were extremely or somewhat concerned about the possibility of this rail strike. There's 4% of Canadian farmers saying they're not concerned at all. Now, what's interesting, the question is which of the following best describes your overall level of concern regarding an impending rail strike? Maybe some of you who don't think it was going to happen are in that 4%, because if it is going to happen, I'm not sure there's a farmer out there that is not touched by this strike. So very interesting data there. Okay, so then we also asked, what impact do you feel and an impending rail strike would have on your marketing activities? We're talking about from a crop perspective. 31% of growers in Canada said it's going to have a significant impact. That's pretty telling. 36% said moderate impact, 28% said little impact, and 6% said no impact at all. One of my real. One of my real concerns here, as I start to think about how all of this kind of lines out, I think there's a real concern for the growers that require grain movement off of the combine. Now, you may be doing that because you don't have enough bin space for the crop. That's a possibility. The other thing that could be happening is for a lot of people out there, is that they need to move crop off the combine because they got to create cash flow because they want to be able to buy things like fertilizer in the fall and get that on. Every farm is different. Everybody's doing it for different reasons. But if you're somebody, for whatever reason, whatever your strategy is, if you need to move crop off the combine, if this rail strike is happening, you will not be able to do so, because at some point, all of the grain elevators, all of the inland terminals, they are full. There's no more grain to be delivered, okay? And so that needs that. That's going to back up at the farm gate, and that's going to have a big impact on the industry and not only on maybe how the. The storage of that grain, if you're out of space and you've got to store it on the ground there's a quality issue there that maybe you losing money on that it also going to put a little bit more pressure I think on the cash advance program for a lot of growers. So you know somebody had said to me, well you know some growers in order to get that cash flow they can access the cash advance program. But that's going to put a lot of pressure on it. And that we'll I've got some follow up questions in regards to that is in terms of some of the caps and some of the the availability but big time concerns here and I just would love your feedback in terms of how you see this issue. It's very important that we get the farmer's perspective on this because at the end of the day if it does happen, you are the one that is impacted maybe possibly the most. Okay. You can't truck your grain to the bank, the port of Vancouver, right? You can't fill a semi in Estevan and say we're taking it to port. We'll see in a week. It's not how this works. It's not feasible, not an option. Rail is required. So I want you to send me an email shaneeyeal agriculture.com you can also find real agriculture across all the different social media platforms. You're al also more than welcome to call the REL feedback line 8557766147 and I've been talking about the 24 crop. Okay, what about the 23 crop? Our data shows that if you think about 23 crop across Canada, 28% of you have 1 to 10% of 23 crops still on your farm. 8% of you have 11 to 20%. 5% of you have 21 to 30%. There's 4% of you that have 31 to 40% of the 23 crops still sitting on the farm. I think we should be concerned about storage. There's only so much storage out there. Okay, send me your feedback. Thanks so much to for everybody joining us here today on the program. It has been a lot of fun. Tomorrow it's the Farmer Rapid Fire brought to you by Pioneer Seeds Canada. We'll hear how farmers are making out and we'll hear their words, how concerned they are about this possibility of a rail strike in Canada. Thanks so much everybody for getting real and getting connected with Real Life Radio and we will chat again tomorrow. Cheers everybody.

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