The truth about starting 2026 without a clear playbook **Episode 50**

Manage weeds early in your canola cereals and pulses with Conqueror Goldwing Thunderhawk and Blackhawk Evo Powered by Duplassin technology advancing the unstoppable superpower of pre seed burn down from nufarm. Welcome to the truth about ag. Foreign welcome to the Truth About Ag podcast distributed under the Real Agriculture Media Network and powered by the Heber Group of companies. Remember to like, share, comment and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the truth about AG 2026 edition. This is the first recording for 2026 and also happens to be episode 50. I cannot believe we made 50, but I'm gonna take it as a positive that we haven't been run off the air yet. So made 50 because you're dedicated by. ADHD when the God is here. So we are here in spirit. At least let's be called that. So powered by the Hebrew companies and distributed under the Real Egg Media Network. Remember to like share, comment, subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, I want to start in his crop production week and it's plus one. Yeah, we are. This is different. I didn't even know what to do. Usually it's minus 40 up there. Yeah, it's minus 40 with three feet of snow coming. So plus one. Beautiful time to be optimistic. You got to I know you didn't attend the show, but you were at the Putters on Monday night. Give me your breakdown of a what's the feeling you got from the show and then what what was the message that came out on Monday night? Yeah, you know, I think the Putters message was the worst of the crop declines are behind us. Now was he going to say we're done on the downhill? No, but the worst of it's behind us sees positivity in the Next call it 6 to 24 months. But that's what range, what causes that you don't know. Right. And a lot of it's tied to different ratios. You use corn to gold ratio, soybeans to gold ratio, corn to cattle ratio, corn to Bitcoin ratio, anything like that. Our commodities, corn, beans, canola, wheat are are starting to get pretty cheap compared to the rest of the commodities, which tends to cause some sort of a trend. He wants to be bullish wheat. He's not really sure the reason that's going to make it be bullish, but part of it is you can just say only stay low for so long. But he said he was also like that about cattle for like 15 or 20 years and then it eventually ripped off. So I just Hope it's not 15 years away before we see the wheat rally. That's a general theme from farmers. Not a lot of grain sold before harvest of 25. Markets deflate. Some areas still had pretty poor crops, even though they were better than they expected. So now that they actually have done the math on yield times, actual price versus hopeful price, I think some pretty disappointing, you know, net incomes in 25, and some of them had done pro formas for 26 of which were one of them. And if, if a bunch of them were disappointed about their 25 net income or lack thereof, they maybe should wait till after Mexico trip to do their 26. Yeah, I think I, I got to the show yesterday and I was talking to a producer and said, so what's the plan for 26? And I think pray was the answer I got back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I heard the odd guy say maybe I just shouldn't put a crop in. But they forget that there's still 250 or 300 bucks of fixed costs that gotta get paid whether or not you have revenue. So that just makes it worse. But yeah, I know it. Canola numbers still look okay, right? Everyone's gonna be looking around for, for other numbers. I, Lentil and Durham guys weren't happy when I was talking to them. Chickpea guys weren't happy. Wheat growers aren't happy. Durham growers aren't happy. Barley growers are okay. This is the last time every type of grower was in the same scenario. Yeah, it's been a while, right? Like the whole market's depressed. But there's also been a lot of times when, you know, and specifically in our life where we think we shouldn't grow any wheat and, and that ends up being one of our, I don't want to say most profitable, but in the middle, profitability crops because acres drop and supply and demand does its thing. But It's. I think 26 is going to be the year of growing more acres on spec than most farmers enjoy. Especially those guys that like to forward sell. Right. Lots of guys don't forward sell. So really, whether they think they're going to make money or think they're going to lose money, their system is exactly the same it's been for the last 20 years. But for those of us that like to have 25 to 75% of our crops sold and locking in a profit, we're going to have a lot more acres on spec this year than, than normal. And some of the numbers I've heard Throughout I was less than 30% booked on 2025 crop in futures which to be fair, not to swear but that scares the out of me right now going into fall updates and projection season because I think like you said, I think nobody's done the yield times price analysis yet to be depressed. So when they get back from Mexico I guess as you said that'll be the conversation of hand. And the other thing too is on all markets canola and wheat which isn't typical normally when we were going to look at old crop sales right now you just see the basis improvement and price improvement out till July. Right. Because that's not how it is this year. Prices are pretty flat in a lot of instances and basis buyers are only they're buying hand to mouth. So some of the best basis is on the nearby as they do an export trade and it looks like crap far out. So it's really hard to know. You know, I'm, I'm kind of bullish new crop actually because that gives us a lot more time for some of these trade issues to go away. I'm not, I'm having a hard time getting bullish old crop. Well and I found it interesting because everybody like don't get me wrong, pessimistic is all I spent two hours and I probably hour and a half in I walked out because I just that's the sentiment and it probably should be probably a good thing because guys maybe know their numbers a little better than I probably think. But to me it was just, it was quiet like everybody was just paralysis. Right. That's what I found out a lot. It was just they don't know what. We don't know what to do. Fertiliser is too high. Grain prices aren't coming around. I mean the putter like yeah we, I love the time from 6 to 24 months. Well if it's 24 months that's a long time to hold on. Well and I, I think that's, you know I always look for unintended consequences of what the in like what the long term view of the industry is going to create for our operation and then our clients. So like no different than our own planning right Is we don't, we would like to spend zero on capital but we might carry more grain into the new crop year than we've ever carried. Like normally we don't carry anything and there's a high probability we're going to carry some, some of the special crops we grew. So you look at that, you look at the right now the percentage of fertiliser booked and bought for spring is as low as it's ever been, which means it's low. It's as low as it's ever been. That's moved on farms. So can the system handle the supply? That's going to have to happen in March, April, May, June. I don't know. How are guys going to handle hauling as much grain as they're going to have to haul in June, July, August? Because there's going to be way more grain get carried to June, July, August than typical. So some of those kinds of things. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out here over the next six months. I think I heard that a little bit is guys like they may have overpaid for fertiliser by 30 bucks where the market's at today. But it's on farm, it's in the bin. And I think, I don't think you're wrong is not only can the farmers handle that kind of transport, but can the system? Right. Well, I was, I was watching, there's a couple podcasts I tend to watch every day or two on, on marketing because obviously I spend a lot of time on that. And they said their corn break evens are within 2% of 2022, which is when fertiliser was at all time highs. But so were prices. And we haven't, you know, we haven't run the data on that exactly. But I'll guarantee we're not a lot different. And it's not because fertiliser prices are as high as they were in 2022, it's because the 24 and 25 crop were so big our fertiliser usage Is up in 26 and fertiliser prices did not reset to where we'd like to see them reset. So that's one of the worries is that if you're in a depressed market and you need depressed market and you need time, but none of our inputs are coming back right. Like in the near term, fertiliser's up from last year, equipment's up atrociously in the last five years. You've got interest rates are about the only thing that's flat to down in the last couple years. But land rent, it's still on the hiccup of high price lentils and $20 bushel canola. Right. We might have got some good land rent prices early in Covid and now we're paying for it when you touched on logistics. So let's pull in so Crop production week. I had finally had you and Jeff in the city for the first time in six months. Got to see the new offices but we also have our US meetings, our annual. So since you brought up the logistics factor. I know we talked about it as you finally realised that the growth came with additional logistics on the grain side. Right. Maybe the one expectation we didn't see. Yeah. 24. It's probably a bit jaded just because our. We grew whatever 25 plus percent for 24. But you were still your old acres in 23. So this was our first year of moving the grain and growing the grain on the same amount of acres and both big crops And I think it's 2200, 2100 super bees. We got to get out in 365 days. So that causes more logistics than one would think the unintended consequences. You know, I spend more time marketing than probably I've ever done. Not. Not the cash side, Jeff, just cash side. But you don't always get to move grain when you like the price. So then you got to own it. You got. And it's just a logistics problem. So you got to own it on paper and. And then, you know, dealing with more custom trucks than we've ever dealt with too. I mean we were talking about it yesterday at coffee that it might be time that we have a Google shared Google calendar with the custom trucks and they book in into delivery slots. Let's push back on the trucking industry what the crushers have done but do it from the farm because we can't have a guy answer his phone 50 times a week. Oh, and that's. We started EOS yesterday in the first hour. Had Jeff had about nine calls, I think. Yeah. Truckers. So. Yeah. So that's. Yeah. Like I said, there's always unintended consequences and that's definitely one of them. That in no way have we perfected, that's for sure. No. So what does the HEB plan look like for 26? Obviously we. We ran numbers yesterday. We had some good conversations. But. Yeah, I mean on the. On the crop side we were heavy cereals last year. So we'll have a little more canola this year. Gonna grow some Liberty Lake Nextera that I haven't ever grown but haven't grown next year in quite a few years. Peas don't make the cut this year. I don't like wheat and barley prices right now. So we'll, you know, we'll. We're gonna actually head into Megan into Ag Days next week and Brandon with the whole crew and we'll look at a couple different special crops that we have grown in the past, see if they don't. Might, might work to flip a few of the wheat acres out of. But yeah, you know, I think you're probably going to see us use a few more generics. And I basically said our cost of production needed to drop 60 bucks from last year and our fertiliser use can't go down. We grew a monster. So that's kind of the, that's kind of the view of the team. And then look at capital and projects based on. We, you know, we still want to invest in the capital projects that we need long term, but anything that's a short term kind of need is on hold because that's, that's just the way it is when, when pro formas look bad. Well, and I think we're about 20% through the pro formas for 26. And I don't think anything's different. I mean, obviously we got some guys in Paul's country, but to be fair, Paul's such a look good for the first time in a lot of years. So they all kind of look the same. And to me it's a break even or loss year. How do you mitigate downside risk? Right. So that's, that's more the discussions we're having. And don't get me wrong, I would love to just say yields. The answer go out, grow a bunch of crop. I don't get to control that factor when I do the numbers. So it's, you got to tell me we dropping costs, are we better marketing? Like there's got to be, there's got to be an edge here because putting your head in the sand ain't gonna do it right. And I've had farms that I've never seen losses on and we're projecting losses right now. And that, that's a hard pill to swallow because I know there's a lot more farms coming down the pipe for us and that gives me an indication of what's coming even. I was in the meetings with MNP today and some of the clients and kind of asked them what they're seeing and no different than what we said was last year. The crop ones that grew a crop, controlled costs, marketed better than the rest. They came out with a pretty decent year, had some that grew big crops but didn't market a cent. So they're coming out at a break even. And then we got some that with these prices, cost of production, there is no profit and there won't be. So it's, it's going to be some big strategies, I think. And I use the word strategy because most guys don't sit down and have those plans. The only way you're making 26 without a change in value or yield is a strategy. Yeah, I mean you can't at the numbers ever, but the numbers nowadays you can't stick your head in the sand. Right. You know, I think wheat pencil is like a hundred dollar an acre loss right now. So you want the first thing you do is tackle cost to try and drop that, to get it to whatever number and then, and then use marketing and yield to fix the rest. But costs are something that, whether prices are higher, prices are low. If you can, the more efficient you are on your cost, they, they give you returns all the time. And high prices tend to cause everybody to inflate costs. I don't care who they are. And so years like this, you gotta remind yourself to go back in for Christmas. I had them print off all the subscriptions and we cancelled credit cards to cancel everything just to make sure we still needed it if anybody came and asked, which we hadn't done in four or five years. And I used to do it all the time. But sometimes those little tricks gotta come back out of the book just to remind yourself what got you to where you are too. Well, I think we've said it before, when you get comfortable, you stop managing. And I think part of it is when you're uncomfortable. I promise you, you're going to manage your numbers better, you're going to be more intact, you're going to know what's happening because there's that uncomfortable fear. Right. And I'm seeing that more and more as guys, they're earlier, we had the fall updates in earlier, we've got the projections, we're getting pushed a little harder to get them out quicker because guys, there's, there's a fear. Well, I mean, I think you got the Angelic podcast with Dan coming up here too. And I think the word's getting out. The banks are maybe asking questions a little earlier than normal too. And some people might not think there's tightening, but there's no question that when they're asking lots of questions, it isn't because they plan on lending you more money. So you know that that's starting to spread a little through the industry too. And you better have a plan on debt service and debt to equity and all the things your banker deems as important and as do we. So this is interesting. Since you brought it up, let's, let's rotate in. So I want to start Dan Aberhart, obviously. Good job. I mean, I was on the act or I was on the live. We sat in our boardroom and watched it. So I think 800 plus producers. So as you said, there, there is. Guys want to hear something, right? And then to Rob's credit, he did a great job kind of going over the industry. Went probably into a few areas that was above the farmer's mindset kind of thing, but he still came away with the takeaways. And you just kind of said it was a know your numbers, because if you don't know your numbers, you're not even starting. Right. Like you're not even at the starting line. B, the relationship with the banks are going to become more important. And he said bank, sir. He didn't say bank because I think you're going to start seeing that more as you want to spread the risk around and give yourself options. And the third one, he's still bullish in agriculture. So on your comment of tightening the banks, I got to put a caveat. We have not seen lending for a lot of our producers slow down. I think it's going to be lending for those that don't have their balance sheets in the position they have to be. Yes, they're going to be tight. If you're, if you're missing a ratio out of those three, that's not hitting whether it's debt service, working capital or debt to equity. Yeah, you're, you're going to feel a tightening, maybe even a noose. But if your balance sheet is strong and you showed any type of low volatility or at least some type of profit the last few years, I don't see a tightening right now at all, to be fair. Well, the thing about commercial real estate being tight and being an issue is those banks still going to lend money somewhere. So they're looking for good risks everywhere. So just as an operator, you know, make sure you're a good risk. Yeah, there's no question on that. I mean, we've got a rule that we don't do everything with anyone in specific on every area of the farm, whether that be banking, whether that be input purchases, equipment purchases. I just don't believe it's good business to only deal with one because it can get complacent. And so I think it's always good to shop around. But, you know, looking at other banks and lawyers and accountants and all that stuff is not something that farms really enjoy doing. But different opinions and different ideas are good, especially in environments like this and especially if you have a good balance sheet and you're a good risk. I mean, you want banks, other banks to know that. Right? And it's an area we got to get more of them working together to. Well, and I think we've also said it's your job as a producer to push your advisors to actually get you information. So whether it's a bank accountant or lawyer, your job is not just to go in there and just take the handout they give you and take the compliance work or the tax work. If you're not pushing your account to sit down and go through your balance sheet with you, if that's your only option there, you need to. If the bank's not giving you printouts and telling you what, why they're ranking you or risk rating you at a certain area, or even going over interest rates on operating credit or authorised limits, like your job as a farmer or slash entrepreneur is to push these guys to make you better and be part of your team. And I think I'm starting to see a lot of complacency. Maybe that's the word I'm looking for and not to put anybody down, but we're getting a lot of complacency in the industry of just handing you the booklet and saying, here it's done. And that doesn't work when we are looking at what we're looking at for 26 to be fair. Well, I mean, look at our meeting on Tuesday. We push back to banks to make them walk through step by step, how they want to calculate debt service compared to the way we do it. And every bank is a little bit different and it's a pretty straightforward formula. The problem is they look at it of what's the worst risk possible and we will look at it of what's actual. Right. So I mean, you want to understand it to the point that I'm not saying you could do their job, but you should know the answer to most of their questions because that helps your banker out when they're dealing with the credit department, it helps them out entrusting you. And I think it's just some numbers that you want to know. Well, I still laugh because I think a lot of farms still believe that the, the client relationship manager is the one improving their loans and, and it'll be fair. Guys, he's on your side because he needs to get it past credit and, and his bonus is based on getting it past credit. So you have to assist him and he needs to assist you in. In creating what you need for credit to feel like you're a healthy risk for them to take on. Right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You want. And you want to find a banker that you feel like they're on part of your management team because. Because it's, you know, it's. In most cases, they have your best. Your local relationship manager has your best interest at heart. I'm not saying credit always does well. And we're still pushing the fact that you should have that at agm. I mean, we. We locked ourselves in a boardroom for seven hours the other day, essentially. Yeah. And most farms don't have that. Ever even have that meeting. Right. And that meeting not only should be you guys, but your banks and your lawyers and your accountants and they should be sitting in the room with you because you're already paying them. Let's be fair. They might as well hear each other speak and come up with the risks on all sides of it. Because to assume that everybody in that room knows exactly what everybody else is going to do and how it's going to affect everybody, it doesn't happen. No, no, exactly. You want, you know, your trusted advisors, like you said, you want to build a relationship that you feel that they're on your team and they do the same. And the more they understand about your operation, the better it is and the faster you can move when things need to happen. Take a pause from the podcast to call out one of our largest sponsors at the Truth About Ag Farmer Coach. We have had the largest uptake in the programme since its start in 2022 and are looking to have more than 100 producers in for the fall of 2025. We've opened up an additional executive programme as our legacy cohort sold out earlier than it ever has in the past and we are asking producers to reach out for availability. We have multiple new industry supporters this year. Love the industry when they jump on board with education and they are sending some of the most progressive and young farmers into the programme. Reach out to your lenders or your suppliers and ask if they're a supporter and if not, why not? And lastly, and the most proud we are at Farmer Coach. We are entering our fourth year cohorts and we have an 80% retention rate with that cohort. The original one has no industry backing. They came because they believed in what we were doing. And now, as they enter their fourth year, they have made changes to their operations beyond what I ever thought was possible. So if you're not looking into the programme. I ask that you hurry as seats are filling up and we want you to figure out your definition success and then let us and the other participants assist you in reaching it. The only real question left to ask is one day or day one. Now back to the Truth About Ag podcast. Okay, let's shift back up to tpap. I actually missed Texas for two years in a row. I loved it and now I didn't even get to go this year. Yeah. So give me your storey. How did not only how did Texas go in tpap but how did it go not being a student and actually being on the faculty? Yeah, I mean it was, it was different. I'm easing my way in, that's for sure. I'm on the advisory board so kind of always had a fair bit influence or some influence on speakers. And so it was good to be back down there and I got to listen to quite a few different speakers. I got to talk to a bunch of the people that attended and get their feeling on what was good and what they think they might change and where they're overwhelmed, you know, where a workshop might be as good as a presentation. So that was good. I mean, I still took tonnes of notes in the two days I was there. I mean I still learned lots from the, from the presenters, but you know, a couple shifts. I would say the average age of the producer there was more like 30 to 45. 30 to 40 and when I took it I think I was about 27. And I would say the average age was a lot closer to 50 to 55 at that time. If I had to guess, there were some younger guys. But I'd say the average age is trending down, isn't it? Absolutely. There was more Canadians there than I think ever. The female to male ratio is starting to get trend its way pretty close to equal. I don't think it's quite equal yet. But David Cole actually had that in his presentation that I forget what year it is that he predicted 50 to 70% of farmland specifically would be controlled by women because men die first. First. Yeah. I would also say that it's just something our industry is starting to do a pretty good job of, of realising there's a lot of daughters are out there that smart and can, can run these farms and do a great job of it. And you don't necessarily, you know, you don't necessarily have to be able to bench £300 to run a farm. Right. The brains are a lot more important in today's world. Of business than they were 50 years ago. And I'm not saying it wasn't important 50 years ago, but there was a long period in agriculture where the harder you worked and the more physical you worked, the better the operation was. So I had some great conversations with some of the female operators and you know, some of the stuff they're doing is just phenomenal, but a lot of operations doing cool stuff. You know, some of the speakers are still not young AT T Fab nicely. And we still listening to this right. Now, I hope, listen to this. And we still talk about succession a lot. So I think as a course and advisory group, we'll still do, we'll still have some work to do there on the transition. And, and also I think we need to improve the marketing of the course. I mean, I just forgot how good it is for the producers. Not only the level of the learning you can have, but just the level of operators you get to meet. And everyone is excited. I'm not saying that they're not nervous about the upcoming year, but they love agriculture. They see lots of opportunity. There's lots of them doing lots of interesting stuff. So all those conversations are really good for your mentality and your brain while you're down there. And I think more producers could have that for sure. Right. And yeah, so it's, it still holds a pretty, still holds a pretty big spot in my heart, that's for sure. Okay, so I, we set Todd down there with you and obviously Chad went down. So I made Todd on Monday give me his top three things he pulled out of the programme. So you said you took notes. What are the top three things you took away from the TPAT programme this year? Oh, I don't know if I narrowed it down to a top three, but. First was the strategy guy had some really good stuff and, and one was probably he had different terms for it, but probably for me to focus more, more of my time on what I call unintended consequences that we see as we grow and the opportunities that lie in that number two, I think there's still a lot of opportunity to have. I don't want to call them value add businesses, but businesses within your operation in the supply chain. So, you know, should a farm own some business they know nothing about? No. But is there opportunity around your trucks and your shop and your vineyard and your. To have elevators and trucking companies, et cetera? I think there's a lot more opportunity there than we maybe give ourselves credit for, you know. And the third piece was we had a Semi rollover this year in harvest. The guy was completely fine, swerved to miss a moose. But I got talking to some California operators where. Holy the regulations and red tape they deal with when it comes to farm safety. Already, you know, we had a note that, you know, maybe we need to have a better plan on how we release things that happen around the farm. And I go to how some of the RMs put out text messages and emails of this road's going to be closed or this bridge is going to be worked on. Like maybe it would be good to have. Hey, we're moving from redverse to Whitewood today about this time. And here's the path the equipment's going to be on and have it on Facebook and have put a note out at midnight the night we had the rollover at 10, so that we can explain the narrative and let everybody know that the operator is safe, number one. And number two, quash a bunch of the rumours that how everybody else comes up with the reasons it happened. So there was an operator out of California that was doing that already. I thought it was a pretty good idea. The best part was our hired man that I always bring out from Saskatoon let me know that it happened before I even heard it. So if you want to know how the rumour now works, it got to Saskatoon faster than it got to some of our employees. Yeah, exactly. Okay, what were, what were Todd's. Oh, God, now you put me on the spot. Yeah, you get to put me on the spot all the time. I'd have to actually remember now. It was a middle of a. It's been a long week. What were his. I, I honestly, I can't remember right now. He had him on his list. I know he had a list of about 30. So. No, I'll. Now you make me blush now because honestly, I don't remember. So I've said to put you in my seat. Yeah. So now I know you're around for a bit, but I know you're also off to Ottawa. So give me the, Give me the lowdown. What's, what's your annual trip to Ottawa look like since you do this once a year? Yeah, you know, last couple years I've planned I go to Ottawa for the Future of Food conference. FCC holds partly to go to the conference and partly just. Just to go and meet with certain people. Yeah, it's kind of all just coming together, but gonna have two or three meetings on investment in agriculture from both kind of multinational firms to family offices. And then we really try to focus on kind of deputy ministers and key bureaucrats that we think get stuff done. Obviously you're going to meet with some of the politicians too, but there's some deputy ministers and bureaucrats that I have a lot of respect for that I do truly believe care about agriculture and they're sprinkled within agriculture and Finance and Treasury and all the different, all the different shops. But it, yeah. So go out there for three days and have meetings for three days straight and remind myself that I'm probably not going to come back for another year. So actually since you brought up the private investment, I'm going to jump ahead. So I know Haney just put out on the RealAg network, put out the land investors leaving the industry is a bad thing. It was a blog and he actually sent me a text before he put it out. He goes, well do you think the comeback on this will be. I said I'm glad it's you and not me. So give me, give me your take. Is what is the comeback? Have you seen? I haven't seen, I didn't cheque the comments. I don't read comments anymore. So yeah, my, I got a two way opinion on this. The first one is, is I believe we need capital in agriculture at current land prices and even if they were to drop some just takes so much money to buy land. So we need innovative ways to have debt for farms to buy more of their own land. But you also, I think having some investors play is a good thing too. I don't believe investors have ever been the top price land very often at all. In fact, in a lot of cases we might feel that they buy some land that's not as high quality for the same price because they're buying big blocks. It's usually the farmers that really set the top of the price. So like I said, there's the young farmer mentality and there's the old farmer mentality. Old farmers need more people buying land and young farmers prefer the price to stay low and them to buy it all. But I truly believe over the next 10 years there's going to be quite a few opportunities to buy land and you're going to have to have some innovative ways to use capital to buy land. So we have a couple strategies. We own the majority of our block at home and we rent some land from investors and we rent some land from retired farmers and we appreciate the relationships with both of them. They both bring kind of different things to it. Right. The retired farmers really care for the land the way we do. Those are the Conversations you have, you can see it lasting forever. But you know, the two investors we rent from too really care for their land. It's just the negotiation's way more business style than the storeys about the land sometimes. But like I said, there's not a lot of difference between a good land investor and a good retired farmer. In my mind, they own the asset because they think it's a good asset. They want somebody to take care of it and you'll always have opinions on how they get to what they think it's worth. But that's, that's the joy of negotiation. And I think the one misconception at least from my viewpoint is, I mean I've heard a lot of young farmers say, yeah, keep private investment out, get the land price to drop. Land price drops, there's still competition from the large scale farms. Like you're not competing against investors, I'm sorry to say, you're competing as your neighbours 90% of the time. The other side of it is if land prices don't drop, we're going to need that investment side for the next generation to actually rent from, to be fair. Because if a consolidated farms are going to continue to consolidate, continue to get bigger, those that didn't consolidate the last 10 years are probably sitting on a significant amount of working capital which they may see this as the opportunity. Right. Less demand, they got a chance of pulling some land. So I mean to just assume the land price drops and we fix this. What they think is the problem with consolidation, it doesn't work that way. Supply, demand doesn't change. Yeah, you know, I kind of, what I've seen in my past too is some farms I think have looked at it wrong. They assume that a, you know, a bigger farm, a 5,6000 acre farm sells to an, to an investor because they paid the most. Lots of times it was because they only wanted to deal with one person. It's way less of a headache. It's already a big enough decision to sell your farm and if you're going to sell it to a bunch of the neighbouring farms, you have to talk to 10 or 12 people. So it might be like the highest price land I've always seen is a quarter section or a half section or a section because you get 10 people bidding on it. Right. So it might be the strategy in the future is as these farms grow. So I mean now when farms sell they're 2,500, 3,500, 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 acres, neighbours might actually have to pool together. Right. So if you're a 4,000 acre farm and you want to buy a 4,000 acre farm where you can't farm at all, you might have to find three or four neighbours to be on the same page with. But can you all trust one person to be the lead negotiator? Because the person selling it doesn't want to talk to all for you. They have a hundred decisions to make when they decide to sell their farm. It's emotionally draining. They don't want to have four or 10 or 20 negotiations in most times. So it'll be interesting in the future. I mean, I think there's potential for those mid sized farms to pool together and buy some of these bigger size packages. But can we pick the negotiator and trust to tag along? No different than a syndicate. And you're taking a whole bunch of rugged individualistics and put them in the same room and saying work together. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I never answered the question whether or not I could do it. I just said it'd be interesting to see if anybody can. Yeah. The other part that I'm finding now is it's not just the land size, it's the infrastructure size. So yes, we got a 5 or 10,000 acre farm. It'd be nice to say, yeah, split it up between all the young farmers in the area. But you got a vineyard that's worth 4 million bucks and you can't just split a vineyard. Well, the vineyards, one thing at least, bins you can separate by bin. Shops and houses on farms nowadays. Holy Christ. Like buy this farm, you already got a house. You don't need a two million dollar shop and a two million dollar house when you already own one. Well, and the problem is you run down the highway. I mean every, everyone's got a dryer now. Starting to see colour sorters on the elevators. I'm. I don't all have dryers. Oh, come on. South of 16 that used to never have dryers. Now I see it. Way more common. Yeah, they're starting to come around more. Yeah. Okay, let's jump back. Carney and Mo in China. Give me your thoughts because this is way outside my realm, so I need, I need you to tell me. Well, I'm not sure Trudeau was allowed in the country, let alone to meet with the President and Prime Minister of China. So we're better off. So how I like to say things about Mr. Carney is currently we are. A way less often Mr. Carney. I like this. Less awful than we were. Okay. Do I believe I actually I actually. There's a lot of things. Carney and his minister, his energy minister, I guess. Hodgson, is it? Hodgson? I can't remember his name right now. He came from Goldman Socks. There's a lot of things those two do that I fundamentally agree with. The issue is, is that it? So far it's been a lot of talking and memory, like mous, not actually getting stuff done, so that the proof will be in the pudding on that over the next three years. Obviously, if they actually get done what they kind of said they want to get done. But, I mean, obviously, I think it's positive that moe's there. The province that grows the most canola and crushes the most canola is there with the Prime Minister to have the discussion. That probably wouldn't happen in the past. The fact of the matter is they're actually meeting with the Prime Minister and the President. That's a big deal. You know, there's some releases today. We're pretty excited about some MOUs. We signed on pet food, on selling them some wood. I hear the sarcasm here. Yeah, yeah. Heavy tour tourism. That was a big one today on the press release. And then at the bottom of the press release, there's been nothing done on Canola from China's side, and there's been nothing done from Canada on ev. So, you know, I explained it to somebody like this the other day, and it's not. I can't think of a great analogy, but in a perfect way, just pretend that you have a pair of twin brothers that are five years older than you, and their names are US and China. And you have to find a way, you know, to sell them the exact same amount of stuff. And they want the same stuff, but they hate each other. And so you sell it to one, it pisses the other one off. That's a tough negotiation to have. I, like, I want to be the guy that just says the feds have screwed it all up, but I got. I'm not in those meetings, but I still can't tell you that. I know a lot. So everyone says, well, let's just cancel the ev. It'll fix the canola. Okay. But then what does Trump throw on for the tariff that then screws our manufacturing industry, which is every bit as big as the. Or our energy industry that's every bit as big as agriculture. And I believe it's actually way more to do with the steel and aluminium tariffs than it is the EV tariffs. I think the media picks up the EV because it fits the carbon, you know, and the environmental thing. Our tariffs on aluminium and steel, I think, are way more penalising to them than the EVs. So, like I said, it's a tough negotiation between those two countries and us. And then at the same time, I think Russia is our biggest competitor in the world when it comes to what we produce. And I mean, they're not. They haven't been in the best spot for the last four or five years and we're absolutely wasting the opportunity to fill all these markets. Right. And then we're, you know, and now we're talking to India and San. India, we want to deal with you more. And if I'm India, I'm saying back, yeah, till China and the US get along and they're closer to you, then what are you still going to care about us? So, like, there's some pretty big strategic plans that need to be implemented here and executed on. It's like, I still have to. It's not pleading the Fifth. We're less awful than we were. But I. I'm not too excited yet either. So I want to touch on Kuzma a little bit. But before that, I. Great Storey walked into the show yesterday. First farmer that stops me must have attended one of the national bank breakfasts. And I don't want to throw anybody on the bus, so I won't even say it, but literally said it was an hour of them saying how we have all these infrastructure plans in place by Carney and the libs are doing it great. And we're seeing this. And then talking about exchange rates and how Trump's going to drive their exchange rate down, which will help Canada make our exchange rate stronger. And. And the guy looks at me, he goes, it's like they didn't know they were in a room full of farmers. I was going to say our dollar going up is not that good for us. No. And that's what he said. He says it's like they brought someone out from Toronto, put him at the front of the room, didn't tell him who his audience was and said, go. Yeah. So now, Kuzma, June 30, doc's your review. Give me your thoughts. Or A, what do you think's coming down? And B, what do you think the effects are? As you just said, we have two fighting twins and we're about to have one of them throw a real big sledgehammer at us. Yeah. I don't want to say it doesn't matter, but I don't think it matters because in the world of Trump, I'm not sure trade agreements matter. He just uses tariffs and sanctions around them in the interim. I still think it's probably the most important trade agreement in the world. That's how important I think it is. So I'd love to believe it's a huge opportunity. But like I said, kind of goes back to my, you know, my two older twin brothers. And until they figure out how to get along, how do I become useful or how do I help them get along? It makes it super tough on some of these trade agreements. I want to take the next few moments to call it another one of our sponsors, Maverick Ag, new look, new team, new location and new outlook on agriculture. We have spent the last six months adding key people and processes to the Maverick team so we can better support the industry in what we see as complex yet exciting times. Our core consultants are the best in their fields across accounting, banking, consulting and insurance. And we would love the opportunity to show you our horsepower. Some of our legacy products include the core financial product. Are you looking ahead, seeing financial ceilings at every turn? The markets, the cost of production, the banks. We provide a full fledged projection package that covers your monthly cash flow worries, your bank ratios, your key performance indicators, your cost of production and your profitability metrics. Fail to plan, plan to fail. Don't go into 2026 without a plan. Number two, navigate a strategy product. Do you feel like Groundhog Day is every day on the operation? Are the complexities of managing family roles, accountabilities, people compensation, and just the sheer number of decisions you're expected to make becoming a stressor? Are you running the business or is the business running you? Let our experts sit down with your family and your team and come up with strategies that work. We don't consult on things we've not seen success on in our own operation or those operations that we work with. Let us steer the ship in the right direction. Along with these offerings, we also have other numerous technology negotiating, insurance and decision making products available. Visit maverickag.com for more details. Now back to the podcast. I'm finding internally in Canada we're actually using it as more of a barter system than I think even Trump's thinking about it right now. To be fair, we essentially want a tax supply manager. We want to come back at it because, oh well, it's going to affect Kuzma. Well, like you said, I don't think it matters. I think Trump's going to do what he wants to do, right? Yeah. And I mean, if I haven't done the calculation a little while but last time I did the calculation, I think it'd be about a month ago. Canada was still basically the least net tariff trading partner of the US Period because there's been a whole bunch of walk backs. So I think our net tariff was like 7%. We're the lowest of all countries. So for sure, the media releases from the Trump administration is our tariffs are really bad. But the amount of walk backs that there have been and then offsets. It'S. Not as bad as we think it is. And so like I said, it's, it's sometimes too about poking the bear and ensuring what you want to win and what it's going to cost you. And then do we have a true belief on, on what needs to be better too? Right. So, but like I said, it's one of the reasons I go to Ottawa once a year is to have conversations with people way smarter than me on things like Kuzma. And one of the Kuzma negotiators is one of the guys we usually have breakfast with, one of the original NAFTA negotiators. Sorry. And so it's really good to always get their take on what the field is in Ottawa, what their ambassador network of the old ambassadors are saying, because it's stuff that we just, we can have an opinion on the farm. But I mean, I talk to a lot of these people and I still have no idea what my opinion should be on it. So it's one of the reasons I still find some value in, in going out there for two or three days. Since we were talking about us. I want to bring up the RFK changes to the food guide. We are now supposed to stop eating carbs and start eating proteins, which literally just took the triangle and flipped her out. So, I mean, I've got my views from the fitness and health side, but I want your views on the agriculture side of. Yeah, what is, what does that do anything to agriculture other than maybe increased demand on proteins? I mean, proteins are the hot thing right now. And I don't disagree with it. I think, I think my personal opinion. Is, oh, I want this is if. We only ate the raw ingredients on the food guide, whether it's a carb and a protein and a vegetable and a fruit, the whole world would be a lot healthier. But the problem is, is 90% of those things, even on the food guys have went through five different types of additives and plastic bags and seals to make them last longer. By the time it gets to us, there's definitely things that don't add to our health. But at the same time, let's be honest, it is way cheaper to eat like shit than it is to eat healthy. McDonald's is way cheaper than lettuce. That's what I mean. And I hate to say it, but like that as a society, you walk into a gas station which is high priced everything, it's more expensive to buy us a fresh sandwich and a bottle of water than it is to buy a Coca Cola and a big bag of chips. Right. It's like you said, it is way cheaper to go to McDonald's and get a burger and fries than it is to stop at the store and get a, you know, a fresh rotisserie chicken and Caesar salad. And so that's my own opinion is that I don't, I don't disagree with more protein. I think we can all agree with that. I just, I don't believe that the food guide is what caused obesity. I believe the food companies created obesity. Like the things that we call carbohydrates on the shelf in a grocery store. Like where do candies fit in? Because it's half the grocery store. I want to go so deep into conspiracy right now. I'm just, I'm just going to hold back. Okay? Yeah. And you're not wrong, I think, I mean the obesity epidemic, I mean in the end it's calories in, calories out. I don't, I don't care if you're heavy carb, I don't care if you're vegan, I don't care if you're carnivore diet. It all comes down to calories in, calories out. So the food guy change doesn't change that at all. I think you're 100% correct that I can go to McDonald's and get a Happy Meal for $5 and some bucks. Where if I go to the grocery store and I, I look at my wife's spending on produce and it honestly makes me want to throw up behind the house right now. But to be fair, it is a full change. Like it is. Carbohydrates are now at the bottom of the food guide, which they were at the top. And the old conspiracy was that Big Ag was, was running that and that's why it was top because they wanted you to invest more in agriculture products. Right, Right. So it's an interesting flip. Do I agree with or disagree? I'm probably neutral because like you said, I think it is tied to other stuff. And I've heard enough storeys from people going over to Europe and eating actual food without process in it and talking about the actual differences where we think this is normal and it'. No, no, you have a taste that actually natural food. Yeah. So what I, I found when I was in Brussels that time, there's also a function of the food guy being should it be different by country. But no, but it should. Like it is going to be like there, there's a lot of countries where staple foods of rice and wheat is the majority of calories and if they don't get them, they die. And so they, you know, they'd love to eat a lot more protein, but it doesn't fit in the body. So there. And like I said, so like I'm not. Am I disagreeing that big egg was part of it in the past? Damn rights, they probably were. The problem is, is I think big food like you look at the actual. You do a little bit of Gemini work on food companies. There's what, five of them that owe to every food brand in North America. And on the conspiracy side, you know. Who owns the food companies? Yeah, Soros. Most of it, I guess. Or what? Big Pharma. Yeah, we treat, we treat it right. We make money treating the disease, not stopping it. Yeah, yeah. I don't disagree with any of that. And we, like I said, we make it so easy. Okay, so I finished watching Haney's wrap up for I guess start of 2026. He had the whole group on the Friday and they talked about is Ag in a better position, worse position or same position at the end of 2026 than it is right now? And I really liked it. So to end this one off cubes, I want you to give me your opinion, I'll give you mine. But where do you see us 12 months from now? Are we sitting around the table in the industry say better position or are we in the same spot we are today or are we way worse? Am I doing this overall on the industry or producers do it on both. I'm actually interested. Okay. So I would say right now the easy button answer is we're in a worse spot because any farmer that does a budget right now is going to hate it and their working capital is going to go backwards. I'm not saying their equity is, but their working capital, you're just going to go backwards. However, in a lot of times like this, opportunities come out of it. So I think in 2026, used machinery and new machinery is going to be in a way worse spot by the end of the year than it is Right now. Right. Because I think purchases are going to be way down. That's not revolutionary. Give me something better. I think that, I think that input companies are going to have had a lot of hard conversations. One on supply chain, one on price or two on price, three on ROI that need to happen and so we'll see where that shakes out. Three, I think there's going to be a lot of operations end up in a better spot because it forced them in this Q1 to have a real good look at their numbers and they found opportunities, whether that be on interest rates, whether that be on some used equipment at an auction or sitting on a lot, whether that be on a neighbour that decided to get out. And there was an interesting agreement. So what I've always learned is when your pro forma tells you that the end of the year should be worse, make sure that you build your business that you can handle the worst. But don't have your head so deep in the sand or get so depressed that you miss all the opportunities that end up in front of your eyes. Because the best opportunities come when things are tough. Dr. Cole, that was his big thing down, down in the US said he said if the bottom 20% of farms are making money, the industry has a problem and you're not going to see many opportunities. I don't believe that the top 20% of farms are even showing big profits on their current cost of productions. So that means that just make sure you don't shut yourself off from the outside world and get depressed. Make sure you cut expenses where you need to find ways to build revenue. You know, focus on your people and long term projects and look for the opportunities. Because I just truly believe there's going to be some monsters in the year of 26 and 27 for those operations that keep a positive mindset in a bit of a tough outlook. And I would disagree. I'm also with you. I think on the primary producer side we're going to be in a worse position on a financial standpoint, let's call it income statements. So I think guys, they're running the numbers now. We've run enough numbers to know even some of the strong farms I work with aren't showing a huge profit, if any. And when I see that scares me. But at the same time it's just going to eat in the working capital. Right? We're going to have a few bank conversations on debt service getting breached and all that, but they know what's coming. I mean the banks are going to, banks are going to know they're going to have to eat some of these breached covenants because the whole industry might do it. The other side of it is, I agree, our discussions with a lot of farms aren't, can we survive this? We already know that the insurance is there. We know the number, we know the worst case scenario, we know the working capital balance sheet's tight. It's what happens if that 10,000 acre block comes up or that 5,000 acre block, and I know you and I have had this discussion is it's really easy to not lose money if you're set up right. Can you then turn around and bite off a chunk of significant ground when you do that? So I think that's going to be an interesting conversation, so I don't disagree with you. Also, some farms may actually come out better, not from a financial income statement side, but from a balance sheet side. Right. They're going to gonna blow up some assets on the land side and they're gonna get some opportunities that they probably wouldn't get if we were all in an upcycle. I honestly believe the opportunities over the next two years are gonna drive everything. Two things. The one or two you pick to go after, even though it's gonna stretch you, and the three or four you say no to. Because I think there's gonna be some local opportunities that people are gonna have to say no to that in the last 10 years they wouldn't have. But I mean, you can't stretch yourself so thin that it creates life. Impossible, right? Oh, yeah, it's. Yeah, it's going to be interesting. So I think. Interesting question before I get my industry answer. So I was having a conversation with a farm today and the discussion went to essentially, in the US, Trump writes a $12 billion cheque. Right. Jordan, farmers I talked to tell me that it's just going to go into land, it's going to drive up the land price because he's just keeping the industry moving forward. And their reply to that is to put the money in the land. If we actually had, let's call this a super cycle down for the next two years. And canola prices, let's say they went to none. Do we actually think that's going to affect land price or do we think that we're going to have the same bailout that Trump just did and the industry like that. That's one of my arguments, that I don't believe land prices drop because I don't think that our government will allow food production and food security for agriculture to take that hit. So yeah, Paparoski asked me this a couple days ago. So I, if that actually happened, the two year cycle low canola that I actually think the risk is more if Durham and pulses stay low for two years. I believe the pockets of land that have overshot are actually tied more to brown soil zone pulses in Durham than they are the black soil zone. So my personal opinion is you could see pockets with up to a 20% land correction and you could see pockets with absolutely no land correction. And that's partly through our data. Right. It's just that we kind of know the productive value and the assessments in a lot of spots in the province. And like the variation in land prices is still, I'm not saying like a brown soil zone farm to a black soil zone farm. You know, my area to Moose Jaw should be the same, but we know a lot of acres, no different than ours around the province that are 2,000, 2,500 more. Right. And it's the same in the brown like a $2,000 spread from one area to the other for the exact same productive outlook and assessment. So I think the interesting part was, is in my mind I don't think we can broad brush all of the production acres because I think there's areas that don't budge at all for a long time and I think there's areas at risk of 10 or 20% correction. But how many pieces moved at the really high price is the question. Right. So let's, let's pull land out the other side of the equation. I mean they changed anger, stability, increase the cap, increase the payment level, all because this can only ev. Right. As soon as the industry seems to hit a hurdle, we start seeing, and I don't call it a bailout because it is a programme based on your own margins. So it's not a bailout. I'm pretty sure it's the first time in Canadian history a bailout's been talked about though. I, that's, see that's where my head goes, is my head still goes that I don't think they allow the industry to take the hit deep enough to actually take this past the point of where we're going to see the whole land distribution go down. Let them essentially let foreclosures happen on farms. I just don't see it. Yeah, like I, I talked to a few Americans about it at tpap but I didn't get the exact number. But like, like I think it was a buck, two bucks a bushel on a lot of the crops. Well, there's I mean, you can Google the chart, it comes up, it's like, so I still am very sceptical that this industry allows it to happen whether it has to happen or not. Don't get me wrong. Different discussion and I'm not getting into that today, but I think it's an interesting conversation that I think we bail out before we actually have that point of downturn affecting oil overall value on the balance sheet. I mean, I had a statement when I was still at M and P that good years were really good for the half tonne and the holiday salesman in town, not for the bank where the debt was getting paid down. I knew I wanted to bring that up there. You know, you said it. Walking into crop production, I really have a hard time being pessimistic on the industry when all I do is walk past Denali's King Ranches and Laramies. Yeah. And I mean like, sorry, producer. So I don't believe a huge, I don't. If there was a huge bailout in Canada of 2 bucks a bushel on Canola, say or whatever, I don't believe that 99% of farms would walk straight into their bank and pay off as much debt as they can to lower their cost structure. Okay, do I believe it'll all go into land? I don't know. But I don't believe it will all go into cost reductions. Okay. So for me to finish on the industry side, I believe, yeah, I believe the industry might be neutral. And the reason I say that is I think it's already consolidating. We're seeing all these businesses, bio businesses. I think that's going to continue because that's, that's business. And I see it on the producer side. I see it on the industry side. I see some of the big conglomerate, especially on the input sides. I think lots of guys are looking generic way as a way to cut cost of production. So I do see some failure there which probably affects R and D to be fair going forward. So I think there could be a long scale issue with that machinery. You're not wrong. I see the used market falling out very quickly. I think the new market, they're going to hold on and start laying more people. I think they're going to do everything they can before they allow it to drop to be fair. Oh yeah. I don't see new prices drop and I see it gutting the factory industry. Yeah. And then on the last part, the interesting part is like I said a few podcasts ago, I had a machinery retail finance company asked for a set of financial statements, which is the first time I've ever had that happen. So. So I'm not saying I want to see producers get hurt, but I'm saying I think this could lead to the shift we need to push the industry into that position where they should be, which is crude financial statements. Like, I think, I think we're going to start seeing that, is that the industry is going to have enough fear of the producer. They're going to start forcing guys into actually having a business strategy and financials and all that stuff that we've been talking about. Because you can tell me a tpap, but I know the proficiency checklist. Todd told me the numbers. It's bad. It's no better than it was 20 years ago when you went to be fair. Yeah, no, it's not. In fact, there's areas that you sound old when I say that. Just so you brother. Serious. It sounds worse. It's worse. Yeah. Well, I don't. It's one of the first times in my career where I've seen a number of instances where principal payments on equipment are bigger than depreciation. Oh, yeah. Because of the size of the equipment bills now, you know, a million dollar combine versus, you know, when I first started, there were 300,000. And so when, when principal payments don't match up to actual. And the issue is now is that actual could be twice as much in the first three years and half as much in the last three. So how do we match that up for operators and for manufacturers and financiers and I mean, it's on. Well, you know, as good as me, it's on. It's one of my rocks for this year is for outside the box ideas on equipment financing because we don't. I don't like to have a bunch of equity in it, but at the same time it eats up cash and we're completely fine with our cost per acre on it. It's the. I don't like to build a bunch of equity in it. We're building equity and it eats up cash. But it's, It's a unique. It's a unique situation. And for those that may not get the discussion, it was. It's essentially, if you were to push equipment out to, let's call it 10 years. The problem is not the last seven, it's the first three. Because the first three, you're underwater because you're not taking very much depreciation or amortisation on the loan in the first three. But we all know that a 10 year old tractor still has a value where theoretically the debt load we've paid it off. Right. So that's where your equity hits, your equity hits in the last few years. It doesn't hit that first three. So it's how do you get the finance companies or how do we manage that to essentially get it so the debt serviceability on equipment isn't killing us at these numbers because that's the biggest issue that probably I would argue we didn't see five years ago. He was, when we were talking about the other stuff, we were worried about cost of production and all of a sudden you're starting to see the debt numbers really start to elevate on some of these guys that roll every year or roll every two years. It's now the debt service ability that's cutting in and that's going back to Robert's Angelic's podcast. That's why the banks are tightening. It's because the debt service you could loan to value firms are not having trouble with loan to value, let's be fair. But when a bank looks at a debt service and it's tight, they're going to take all of your value. They're not going to let you essentially have play around with that spare equity. So that's what he means by tightening is that they want more of your firstborn son because they don't trust you. Yeah, yeah, they're. They wake up in the morning, try not to trust people. So yeah. Okay, good one. What else do we got? Anything else? I think that was the main stuff on my jot notes. Okay, well for those still listening, else too major? Nope. We got a whole bunch of good, good guests coming up in 26. We've nailed down the list at least on four or five here in the next couple months. We hope that are gonna jump on some egg, some not eggs. So we are gonna get outside the industry a little bit hopefully and then yeah, hopefully we hopefully two years from now or one year from now, we're talking about episode 75 and episode 100. So to those that are so along for the ride, thank you for listening and remember to like share, comment, subscribe and remember, that is the Truth About Ag. Thanks for joining us. The Truth About Ag podcast is a proud member of the Heber Group which includes Heber Grain Ventures, Maverick Ag and Farmer Coach. We appreciate the support. Lastly, please like comment, share, subscribe and ring the bell. And if you have questions for a future podcast, please leave in the comments below. Thanks for listening.