Grain Marketing 201 with Angie Setzer

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[Yeager] Hello everybody. I'm Paul Yeager. This is the MToM podcast, a production of Iowa PBS and the Market to Market TV show. Today, we are going to school with Angie Setzer. We're going to do our grain marketing 201 class and 202. This is the first of two parts. We split up a long conversation with Angie into two bites that go through a lot of the fundamental side of marketing grain. We're going to talk about all sorts of plans incremental selling access, assessing and access both. We'll also talk about logistics and understanding who wants your grain, when they want it, why they want it, and how you can be informed to do something better about it. First of two so if you're watching these together, just back to back, boom. Otherwise we'll see you next Tuesday. But first let's get to class. It's time now with Angie Setzer.

[Yeager] Hello, Professor Setzer.

[Setzer] Hello.

[Yeager] Do you want that to be your new intro?

[Setzer] Yeah, I like it better than the goddess. The grain. Honestly, I think that we should change.

[Yeager] No no no no, you can't. You can't change midstream. Now you're too far down the road to get out of.

[Setzer] Now. I know I have worked really hard for it, do I guys, for doing absolutely nothing I got. But yeah.

[Yeager] Before I forget, I'm sorry I missed you the last time you were in the studio.

[Setzer] It was a bummer. It was a bummer, but Brooke did great. Like, I can't, I can't, I can't lie, who was subbing was phenomenal, so I, I missed you, but I enjoyed the conversation.

[Yeager] She's wonderful. And she's always, And you watched her on local TV when you were living in Iowa. What was kind of fun?

[Setzer] Yeah, I fangirl a little, to be completely honest. I was like, oh, my gosh, I know you. You've been in my living room before and you didn't even know it.

[Yeager] So well. There's a whole nother line that I usually give in public. I don't think I'll do it on this podcast because it's recordable. about that. When you started in this business, I think I asked you this a long time ago, why did you do it?

[Setzer] Yeah, I yeah, why? I initially, was to make money. I think that's how everyone gets involved. Right. But like, once I got, I mean, I grew up on a farm and I watched our family farm kind of go from being something to, to not being something. and as I started to work with farmers, I really realized that in a lot of ways, there was a lack of clarity, and I don't even know if it was necessarily there was a lack of education 20 years ago, I'm not going to lie. Now, you can't really argue that it's there as much. But, you know, I just felt like there were so many things that were well known amongst folks that were in the commercial side of the business that were taught the trades, the traits of merchandizing and things that weren't passed down to the farmer. And the farmer was there sitting, you know, kind of working to improve their production practices and working. You do all kinds of different things. but really wasn't given the toolbox or the tools at which to, to better, you know, their grain marketing decisions. And so for a lot of them, you know, at the time when I started, like, let's be honest, like we treated from $2 to 2.75 in, in a two year time period. So it wasn't quite the same as is what it is now. But you know what really started to drive me and what really fueled my passion was seeing how many growers were able to learn and improve what they were doing just by being like, hey, have you thought about looking at spreads? Have you thought about looking at approaching your marketing differently? You know, things like that and really seeing kind of the light bulb go off and, and, you know, learn that you can help folks improve what they're doing there.

[Yeager] But 20 years ago, these tools were there though, right? Just yes, being utilized is what you're saying.

[Setzer] Yeah. I mean we'd had so I started in 05, so I wasn't too awful far. I think it was less than a decade after the debacle, you know, of the mid-90s. And so there were a lot of people that were absolutely just still, you know, heavily against HTAs. And that was one of the things for me early on that I had found was the better tool for my growers. You know, and so there were a few different things out there where, just yeah, you had the tools, you had the chips, you had the things that you could have at your fingertips. But we also didn't have the internet. We didn't have podcasts, we didn't have any of that sort of thing. So a lot of what folks were learning was either by being, you know, attending workshops in person or maybe through a magazine, which magazines are great. But we all know, you know, how do you teach a lesson in current marketing plans or what have you, when you're 30 days behind the calendar?

[Yeager] But we had newsletters. I mean, lately started in the last 20 years and there was information I can remember the Pro Farmer coming to, that was something my dad read word for word. You know, the eight pages that were in that each week. So there were things going out, and there were speakers going out. So Sue Martin, John Roach, Tom Pfitzenmaier, whoever would go speak to a group, they would talk about, you know, the big question is, well, where are we headed? We going higher? We're going lower. I mean, that's one thing, but it for you, I think becomes more of an education site when you go out. Right?

[Setzer] Yeah. I, I want growers to be able to, you know, like if you what if you give a man a fish he can eat for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he can eat for life. Right. Like, I want to make sure that if I disappear tomorrow, that a lot of growers that I've worked with are able to take the tools that I've given them, you know, and, and be able to, to do better for themselves, you know, and I think the it is been a really it is part of why I wake up every day ready to rock and roll. Right? Even when things are bad, like I, I love that I get to work with farmers and be able to have that feel like I'm providing them a service and giving them insight into something that is is definitely not only helping their bottom line, but helping take a weight off their their mind or their shoulders or whatever that may be, because it's hard to to make marketing decisions. It's impossible to get it right, you know, first off. So let's just all sit around and sing Kumbaya for a minute because you're never going to nail it. Congratulations. Like, there's, a thing that you need to know. You're always going to be disappointed in your marketing no matter what you do. unfortunately. But, you know, I like to be that person that can kind of be like, all right, here are the things that we wanted to do initially. Here are the opportunities that we have in front of us now. Like, let's remember what we're trying to accomplish and put that together.

[Yeager] All right. Let's put it away. We'll just ask that first question that I'm guessing you ask when you ask the farmer, what would he want to do? So that's the overall question. What do you want to do in the answer is make money so I can do this again. Right. Okay. So that's out of the way. Angie. It's the time of year when there is a big pile of grain. I have all my harvest done. Now what?

[Setzer] Now what? Yeah. You know, I think the biggest thing that I want to throw out there is, this is not going to fit everyone's situation because everyone has a wide array of, you know, market access, education, sales on the books, maybe. Maybe not. you know, certain things that are going to influence their ability to make decisions and be successful, yada, yada, yada. But, you know, having said that, you know, I think I can kind of come at it with a broad brush sort of standpoint and say the first step that you need to do is assess your situation. You know, in when I was running the elevator, we had to do mark to marketing, mark to market once a month. You had to do marked market accounting, where you basically had to take measurements, get an open stack of contracts. What did you have that needed to be taken care of and settled out? So from a farmer standpoint, what do you have that needs to be priced? Do you have stuff that's on delayed price? You know, stuff that's on a basis contract, you know, taking in, an overall picture and getting it written down on what you need to be looking to price in what you have on hand are your number one. That's your number one step. Assess your situation and then look to assess your local market. You know, what kind of market structure are you selling into? Are you relying heavily upon the river system? Is the river going to be shutting down soon or in northern Illinois, or are you in southern, you know, in the southern tributary system? Are you, you know, akin to rail? Are you stuck going in New Mexico? Like, what is your local market structure look like? Is it just ethanol? and then start to get a feel talking to your buyers, talking to folks around you, you know, as to what the local situation is, you know, or or your ethanol buyers looking to get coverage, throughout Thanksgiving into December. Are they looking to maybe extend that out beyond, you know, into January, February or March? you need to be having the conversations and kind of assessing a ‘what is my demand center’ or ‘what is the demand structure look like in my local market?’ And what does that mean when I, you know, assume what basis is going to do? It's also important to take into consideration what historical or where basis tends to trade, for you locally. And then of course, part of assessing your local situation is taking into consideration where that value is currently versus where it would typically be.

[Yeager] All right. This is where I'm going to interrupt just for a moment, because yes, I know exactly. Because as I like to say, like politics, all business is local. But how do I know in my exact situation? Because everybody's going to be different. That you can see a basis map. Of course, those exist, but how do I assess what it is that you're saying I need to do? Is that phone calls? Is that looking on websites? Is that what?

[Setzer] It could be? A whole host of things. It could be phone calls to your local buyers. I like that idea. you know, obviously for me, in my role, I provide that intermediary sort of service to my growers. I'm the one here in the state that's calling the end user and doing the assessment for them. But if you're, you know, obviously not working with me or someone like me, I definitely suggest the phone call route. you know, for those of you that are perhaps Gen-Z millennials or older, you know, you're you're going to have some sort of real gut reaction to calling, like, you're going to be taken back to your 12 and your mom's telling you you have to call and order the pizza for the first time or something like that. Like you might panic a little bit, but that's okay. you know, when it comes down to what you want to be having this communication, these open lines of communication, your buyer, your local buyer is not your enemy, your local buyer, you know, if you let them know to a certain extent. Okay. Hey, I've got this many bushels. I'm looking to move at this point in time. They're going to use that against you. They're going to use that to have a better feel for what's out there and what is able to move. Obviously, if you have a value in mind that you want to trade, if you know, you know, historically speaking, where you tend to say it like for us, we tend to sit here in Michigan, we're 10 to 15 under. So I know what 10 or 15 under is in line with historical norms. Anything much better than that to me is a no brainer and value. Like we're going to commit anything much worse than that, probably going to hold off on. And so for anyone sitting local, that's the best thing to do. Be talking to your buyer, taking into consideration where your values are trading versus where you would typically see them, and then kind of work to decide what you are going to be looking at and when you want to be tapping into that market.

[Yeager] My call time out here, when you say consult your buyer, I know I should get a sign, right? It just says right on the floor and then get the right and go, you know, lined up for 235 for the commercial break. Okay. I talked to, a mutual friend of ours that you set me up with in Michigan, and I asked, you know, what are his outlets? And he's like, well, I'm almost even between this ethanol plant, this crush plant and my local co-op or my, my co-op, which doesn't have quite the same basis level that those other two do have. So when you say buyer, you mean buyers are yours plural?

[Setzer] Yeah, I would say buyers plural. Like I think a lot of times one of the biggest errors that farmers get into and it's understandable, right. You guys are drowning as it is. Like you barely have time to know what day it is most days. Like you have time to call 17. People chat about the weather, feel really awkward and then get a number and hang up. But you have to like either you have to or you need to start working with someone who can, because those are the conversations that are going to present you opportunities when the market is is open, you know, there are a lot of times that people I think one of the biggest errors that I see from a farmer when it comes to marketing is they try to sell into a market that doesn't want the grain, like farmers are seasonal, they're creatures of habit. They love to move stuff. They have to move stuff. After the 1st January, obviously we had tax problems leading up to this. The end of December or worries over tax problems leading up to the end of December, you know, and so now everyone's going to sell a bunch of stuff prior to the after January 1st to generate income, get those payments paid. You know what I mean? Like April, you're going to see a lot of grain moved. Like there's a lot of times where you see a lot of grain move when it really could have been moved 3 or 4 weeks earlier and probably benefited the grower 10 to 15, $0.20 better. Maybe not always by any means, but I feel like so many times we were just like, oh well, I know I need to move bushels after the first part of January, I'm going to go ahead and make that phone call on January 5th, and then you can't figure out why the market stinks, right? Like, let's be thinking about the things that we need to be doing well ahead of time making those calls, having those conversations, figuring out when your buyers are going to be looking for bushels and what kind of values they're thinking will trade, and then they're going to be the ones to reach out to you when an opportunity presents itself, because they know that you're engaged.

[Yeager] And you're talking a tiny bit there about what you call seasonality.

[Setzer] Yes. Yeah. Seasonality is an important thing to keep in mind and fight. As a farmer, I feel like.

[Yeager] Okay fair enough. So seasonal.

[Setzer] Right? To a certain extent.

[Yeager] But to an extent. Got it. You mean the fighting to a certain extent or a seasonality. So you say.

[Setzer] The fighting to a certain extent. You want to fight like seasonality, you want to fight against when it comes to basis and pressure and things like that. But seasonality you want to be aware of when it comes to futures, moves and marketing opportunities.

[Yeager] Okay. So then I want to go back to something you just said. They're not wanting the grain. No. When somebody doesn't want the grain, how do I know that?

[Setzer] Typically when there's a lot of grain moving. I mean, it's one of those things that you can tend to sense. Right? I wrote an article a while back that it seems commonsensical, but, like. All right, your plant can't stay open. Like, right now. We still have an issue. Our ethanol plant is full. They're working on a bin project. It should be up and running. Everything will be back to normal. But until that bin is done, they struggle with space, right? Okay. So until they're able to stay open five days a week, at their normal hours, it's very unlikely that they're going to give me a significant push on basis values. Right. Like their bellies full currently. And I'm asking them if they want another piece of pie. It's just like Thanksgiving. You know, you're going to eat 17 pieces of pumpkin pie within the next 48 hours. You're not going to eat them within five minutes of finishing the turkey or the prime rib or whatever. Right. And that's the same thing. So if the lines are long, if the hours are short, if the values continue to widen, the market doesn't want your stuff. If there's no lines, if ours get extended, if all of a sudden we're open on the weekend, like these types of things, the market wants your stuff. And that is when you're primed to be looking to sell.

[Yeager] So when the lines are long, that's not a good time to sell.

[Setzer] Exactly.

[Yeager] When they're calling me to say, do you have any grain? Is that the best time to answer that call and make it or be a cynic in me, they're just trying to get a deal right now, thinking, I'll hop right on the very first call.

[Setzer] And I think you have to. You don't want to hop on the first call. That's the point. Like, you want to be engaged when your buyers engaged, they want to dance. You want to dance, you have to dance. You have grain to sell. They have grain they need to buy. Let's work to find a common, price at which we can agree. And if we don't, that's fine. Both parties can choose to walk away and someone else can come in. If you think your corn's worth $5, you have every right to sit and wait until someone pays you $5. You also have the risk that in the end, you're going to have to sell it for 350. That's all there is to it. But when it comes down to it, if your buyer's calling you, that is not a time to ignore or hang up or whatever. It's the time to say, hey, yeah, I got 100,000 bushels. I'm looking to move. I see you're posted 20 under. What are you thinking? You're going to be low. We probably do 15. Yeah, I think it needs to be an option. You need to have a number in mind that you want to throw back at them. But you want to be engaging in that conversation that they're wanting to have because that is the time that you need or you will have the opportunities presented to you. As a farmer, you have to recognize that the commercials, the elevator people, they're having these conversations every day. For me, when I was managing my space, I knew what type of value I was looking for and what type of number I would sell. A chunk of bushels at, and the end user knew what kind of value they were willing to pay, and we were always having a conversation, whether we were far off or not, about where those values would line up with one another.

[Yeager] And how am I, I don't know how much you'll pay you back, but I mean, how much leeway did you have? But you also probably going back to that initial thing you said about taking inventory of everything you kind of had to know. All right. I bought these 100,000 $0.04 cheaper than I probably should have. I do have a little bit of play now.

[Yeager]I mean, was that constantly in your mind?

[Setzer] Oh, constantly. Yeah. I mean, it still is to this point and I'm not managing an overall position. I'm managing a bunch of positions that make up a whole. But, yeah, when I was at the elevator, I always had an idea of what I was willing or what I could trade. I always needed to know what I could trade. You know, and from a farmer standpoint, that is asking a lot. Like, I would love if you guys had the ability or you guys and gals, if everyone had the ability to know what they could trade at any point in time, you know, but it's super important, you know, that's where I come into play or whatever. But to just have a general feel, an overall idea of what that market is looking like. And like I said, communication is the key in that. And so many times we keep we act like this buyer is the enemy in the buyer is not the enemy. The buyer is the one that's going to provide you insight into what the market structure looks like and what you know should be happening. What they feel like is happening. Like you can get a good sense of their overall, you know, gut feel. And if it's like in a situation where you can't trust your local buyer, I'm gonna bet you no matter where you sit in the corn belt, there is someone else within 60 miles that's going to jump over the opportunity doing business with you.

[Yeager] And that opens up another bit of the negotiation leverage that a grower might have. Then.

[Setzer] Yes. Yeah. There is definitely a desire to be able to bring new people in. And there's a desire, you know, amongst the ag professionals and originators out there to be able to, to create that new relationship with the grower, because that's what it is. It's a relationship business.

[Yeager] Now, when you were at the co-op chair, you were trying to benefit, you were trying to acquire, like any business, the product at as economical of a sense lowest as you could, but you had to. And that's the same for an ethanol plant. That's the same for a crush facility. That's the same for whatever, right? They're all trying to acquire. So when a price goes down, say, the price keeps going down and down and down, what recourse do I have against a situation like that where it keeps going, going, knowing that that buyer doesn't have to take my higher offer or take and I'm stuck? What do I do now?

[Setzer] Well, I think that's one of the important factors that a lot of folks tend to ignore. Or one of the things that separates the successful marketer from the marketer that, you know, maybe sits there and wonders what the heck just happened? You know, and that is being aware that things can change, being aware that your assumptions may be wrong. You know, for me, this past year, I'll use the most perfect example, right? For me, this past year, I had anticipated we would see some continuation of bases strengthening. Michigan had one of its largest crops that we had had in a significant amount of time. Much of the Eastern Corn Belt had so our ability to rail grain out, whether it was going into the southeast, whether it's going to Ontario, any we weren't moving bushels. But I still anticipated that we would see basis to where we could be trading 10-15 like I said, back into normal levels. As we worked our way through the spring and into the summer, well, we ended up our largest poultry producer in the state, had bird flu, had to call every bird. And then Michigan, it spread to the point of where our entire commercial poultry herd, flock, had to be wiped out and so my opinion on basis going to ten under, had to change in five minutes. I went from, we have time, you're okay, we can be patient. We don't need to be in a hurry. To Friday afternoon calling every one of my customers sending out blanket text alerts that basis needed to be booked between April through June because we were wiping out, you know, 10 million bushels of corn demand in a peninsula. And so that is one of the most important things that I'll throw out there is you can have an assessment, you can have an assumption of what the market's going to do, especially right now. No one knows we're wide open. There are a lot of things that could, you know, develop as we move ahead. but you need to make sure that you're aware of the situation changes. You are willing to change with it.

[Yeager] And when you say basis wiped out, you mean your local basis impact, right? So takes a different story for you in Michigan than it was for those in Illinois.

[Setzer] Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We saw a very, very different sort of situation. But yeah, we went from, you know, me thinking we were going to see ten under to trading 40, 50, 60 under, for the bulk of the summer. And, you know, just simply because the basis had wiped out, we didn't have the demand.

[Yeager] What if 48 hours or two weeks before believing your position that there's going to be this demand? What could a grower have done to prepare for a scenario like that?

[Setzer] It's such a hard question, but I think the biggest thing is you just get prepared to make a decision if something changes significantly. I think, you know, my growers were prepared well and, you know, kind of like my growers were prepared to a certain extent. you know, because they were tapped into a market, they were tapped into market Intel. So I would say one of the most important things is, is again, goes back to that communication, you know, have these conversations with the people in your local market. You know, continuously, not continuously, but pretty consistently, you know, once a week, once every other week, whatever that needs to be because that is going to be the difference. And so that's what I would say, when it comes down to it, what you need to do to be prepared or able to, you know, assess the situation if something changes dramatically is to be plugged in to that market structure, to where if something happens, your buyer or buyers who you're talking to because one of them, even if you if you don't feel like you have a great relationship with one out of the 3 or 2 out of three or whatever, you're going to find that one of them is going to be looking out for you and able to have that type of conversation you know, with your, your plugged in.

[Yeager] So that's the information side. Is there anything I could have done, for upsetting a position setting? You know, we hear all these terms and things like that. Is there a type of marketing tool I could have done? I, you know, that we hear this setting the floor.

[Setzer] Yeah. You'll get that in couple different ways. I mean, there's a couple different ways that you can go about setting the floor and each person's going to approach that individually. You know, to me, I think the only real way to set the floor, truly set the floor, is to lock in your cash price. You have to lock in your flat price. Know what your, you know what? You're getting paid now, if you want to still party and stay, somewhat long the market, then of course you can reopen with calls or something like that or. Well, it's not something like that with calls. Calls are the only thing that are going to allow you to be tapped into the upside of the market structure. You can of course, people will say that you set a floor with puts. I would argue that you do protect your downside risk with puts, but I don't think setting a floor is a disingenuous term for puts, simply because you can spend money on a put, that has time value in it. you know, like, you could see the market just simply sit and spin for a while. You've spent that money on that put you get closer to expiration. All of a sudden we fall off. But your put doesn't necessarily gain in value because your time is eroded. you know, I've seen it before where a put doesn't really provide that floor. Does it give you a safety net? Does it provide you a feeling of, of being covered? And does it help to offset, you know, some of the hit that comes with the downside move? Yes. but it's not the floor that people want you to go to, to believe it can be necessarily. and so, yeah, to me, you know, if, if you really are in a situation where you're looking to absolutely set that floor, the only way to truly do that is to lock in the cash price that you're getting. And if you want to take off the cost of a call option and that and have that be your floor, like I'm getting, you know, $4 less than $0.15 on my option. And so I'm taking no less than 385. That is an option. And that is something that you can do. You know, there's just a lot of different ways that you can approach the market depending on what you like to do and who you're working with.

[Yeager] And that is something I have done with one of my buyers, is what you're saying?

[Setzer] Yes. Oh yeah. Yeah, I've done that plenty of time where you can. And a lot of people will do that to where you can. You'll have that opportunity of, you know, a lot of different elevators out there will offer that tool for you.

[Yeager] Okay. So that is something that's there. And that's, I guess that's a tool in the tool moments. So we 've kind of taken you off your pattern. My apologies.

[Setzer] no, you're right.

[Yeager] Assess was the first thing once you've assessed things we've looked at, we've established conversations with our buyers. We're aware of what's going on. They know who we are when we call. Now what?

[Setzer] Now, remember your non-negotiables. And so you have a certain set of things that you cannot work around their non-negotiables, you know, and you can use them in life and you can use them in your marketing. And so to me, your non-negotiables are your space, your cash flow, and your logistics needs. And so obviously, your non-negotiables ahead of harvest include what grain needs to be moved. We're going to be marketing our grain that has to be moved to harvest, that we don't have space for. First and foremost, that's going to be your first priority. But we're beyond that. So now we're looking at, pouring beans, you know, making sure that you're keeping your stuff on hand in good quality. and I'll have a lot of growers, you know, not of mine, but I've interacted with growers. Really, I don't really need to core the bean, and I'm like, you know, I do like to live dangerously, but I am going to push you to pull 10% out. You need to pull that center out. You need the grain to flow, especially in a year like this one. Y'all are harvesting corn that was 13% or last beans that were 7% or less. You've got a lot of stuff. You're going to have a lot of junk that's going to come out. Like you're going to get the tips broke off your corn. Some spots. It's just I've had all kinds of crap thrown at me already, and we weren't even that dry at harvest as opposed to some of them in the, across the Corn Belt. And so make sure you're coring your beans, taking into consideration what needs to be going out here over the next couple, few months. and then think about the cash flow needs. You know, I had a grower and, and I feel like I pick on him every time, but I have a grower that I worked with from the start of my career. He was with me through the elevator, and he's still with me today. And he'll laugh. You know, he'd laugh if you ever listen to anything like he doesn't listen to my interviews. He gets it. That's just ridiculous. Why would they do that? but, you know, I always knew that he was going to call right after the January USDA report and tell me that we had 4 or 5 days to turn a lot of bushels into several hundred thousand dollars worth of cash because he had landlord payments. Do you know what I mean? Like, I just I knew and so do you guys, you know, when John Deere years, do you know when property taxes or do you know when that seed bill is due. And so when the market gives you an opportunity and it pops up, you know, and provides you, an ability to sell for 40 or some price out in the deferred time period that you think is isn't a bad value. You know, you want to sell the bushels that will help to cover those bills, like remove the need to move stuff into the market when you have to move it into the market, or make the transaction when it's something you want to do, and it fits the need that you have that that lands into your non-negotiables. The third one is logistics. a lot of times it'll get growers that will have several hundred thousand bushels that love to wait until July, to figure out how to move it all. That's not this. Let's move chunks of it throughout the year. or at least make it to where we aren't panicking right before harvest because we don't have everything out that we need it to.

[Yeager] Well, because in that logistics side of the equation, I think of there's the one guy that hauls the semi, for six farmers. And if we all need that driver at the same time, if I'm forced to call, I'm fourth in line.

[Setzer] Yes. Yeah. You weren't moving those bushels right away. Yeah.

[Yeager] Because I have to have it. All right. So I'm two weeks out from needing to make a payment on my seed. Is that enough of a window to think about selling. Is it or is it. Absolutely. Tomorrow is my due date. I better sell. So in that two week to one day period. At what point do I say, golly, if I just wait three more days, I think something's going to happen.

[Setzer] We'll do that. It never ends well. It doesn't end well. I mean, if it does, then your luck is better than mine. Because I feel like any time I've ever had a grower, that's like, by Friday, I have to. And it's like, okay, well, let's just go ahead. Today's a good day, right? It's Tuesday, I'm going to see what happens over the next couple days. It never ends well. I mean, and I shouldn't say never I always say that never use never and always when talking about commodities. But honestly, this is one of those situations. And, you know, I, I think it was I can't remember who it was. It was like buy, whatever when you can not when you have to. And in the same sort of deal, like be moving your cash bushels when you can, when it feels like it's a right time. And so a lot of times farmers will always, you know, assume, okay, well, if it's this good today, then it's going to be that much better tomorrow. then it's possible, but I would that's where the, the the focus on the cash prices that you want to be selling before the market gets there is super important to, you know, writing those targeted orders down, putting the solid target orders in, you know, doing those types of things well ahead of time instead of making those decisions at the last minute, is probably one of the better tools that I've seen. 

[Yeager] But Angie, I have a fear of missing out on a higher price. You told me to sell, and I know that's what you hear and it's not the….

[Setzer] Oh, yeah.

[Yeager] Yeah, but I have this fear.

[Setzer] Yeah, I will say this. And I said this in 2020, and leading up when we were on our way up and I've said it, I said it especially over the last year or so, I can tell you, I've been like I said, we've been doing this for 20 years. I have watched a lot of cycles. I've seen a lot of cycles, and I've seen some things, like you can tell by the bags under my eyes, you know, like, I would rather all day, every day for the rest of my life, have a grower yell at me because we sold a chunk of their bushels too soon. Because, remember, if you're still selling incrementally, you want the market to continue higher. I would rather get yelled at for selling 10% of a crop. Even 20%, 30%, whatever, I don't care. I would rather get yelled at for selling a portion of the crop with the grower and making smart decisions that were educated and watch the market go higher, then have to figure out how the hell we put lipstick on the pig like we saw this past summer, where we had growers locking in hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of losses because the market went lower, kept going lower, and didn't stop until it basically punished us all. And so yeah, I welcome it. Please yell at me because the price has gone up.

[Yeager] Yeah, I was trying to think of something smart to say that. Forgive me for being paused right there because I'm like.

[Setzer] No.

[Yeager] I mean, your ear can start on, start to bleed because you're getting yelled at so much. 

[Yeager] Part two comes your way next week. Here are some of the things we're going to get into. We are going to be talking about I can't believe I'm going to say it. Marketing grain like a four year old. We'll explain in the next episode of the MToM podcast.  I'm Paul Yeager. Thanks for watching. See you next time.