Live from Cherokee, Iowa, It's Kristi Van Ahn-Kjeseth

Market to Market | Podcast
Feb 18, 2025 | 43 min

The MtoM is back on the road in 2025. This road show was in Cherokee, Iowa and Kristi Van Ahn-Kjeseth joined us at the Cherokee County Ag Show. This live discussion covers her journey into commodity analysis to insights on managing emotional decision-making in farming, Van Ahn-Kjeseth shares how global factors have transformed agricultural marketing and why treating farming as a business is more critical than ever. And she shares her story about the call that came in asking her to be on the TV show.

Transcript

[Yeager] Hello everybody. I'm Paul Yeager. This is a live interview and podcast. Today we are in Cherokee, Iowa at the Cherokee County Ag show. Joining us today is regular market analyst Kristi Van Ahn-Kjseth. Th. Did I say that okay?

[Kjeseth] Yes. Yes. You're doing great. Honestly it's just something that's a big struggle. I mean, it is not Anderson or Johnson I kind of wish it was or.

[Yeager] Or just Van Ahn.

[Kjeseth] I tried that, it didn't go over well with my husband.

[Yeager] We are at the Ag show. This is part of our 50th season tour. The fourth one, where we've done a lot of discussion. So thank you to everybody who's in the room here. Glad to have you. We're going to take a couple of audience questions. I have some for you. Kristi, you've been on the show now a little more than a year. But you've been in commodities a little bit longer. You are from Alexandria, Minnesota?

[Kjeseth] Yep. Smack in between the cities in Fargo on the Twin Cities.

[yeager] And you have a strong connection to the town of Fargo?

[Kjeseth] Yes. So I graduated from NDSU, as did both my sisters. And so that's where I got my business degree. I also finance I started off at you down in the cities, just the cities where I'm from. And I moved back up. Honestly, I'm also really a stubborn individual and, well, resistance with any excuse I said I would never go to. And yes, you and I ended up there. So it's a great, great school.

[Yeager] And occasionally you will end up back on campus. I think you had a nephew that was going to school there recently?

[Kjeseth] He lives in Fargo. I had a niece that at least went to NDSU. I have a niece that's now at Concordia-Moorhead, which is right next to each other. So, yeah, we're up there quite a bit. It's fun to get out that direction. And Fargo is actually a great town.

[Yeager] And when I say Alexandria is your home, you actually lived in a number of places growing up for some reason.

[Kjeseth] For that. Yes. So I was actually born in Iowa, working on the town. And then I grew up in West Bend to live in Brooklyn, Okoboji. And then I like to say my parents had that mid-life crisis. Sorry, mom, but then we were in Arizona briefly. And then we moved out there. So I've been in Alexandria since I was in third grade.

[Yeager] And so every time I asked about a town, Kristi says, oh, I live there. Oh, I live and you and you have relatives that are in Iowa?

[Kjeseth] Yes. My grandparents live in Dows. I don't know if anyone knows where that is. It's right outside that Hampton. Yeah. Clarion, Mason City. Yes. So, in fact, the first weekend in August every year, Dows has a celebration called Corn Days. And we pretty much doubled the population in that town that we get when everyone comes down and I, where people are just like, oh, it's all the Rocco's coming in like that. Sometimes we like to really throw it out with, like, matching shirts, even it up. It's pretty intense.

[Yeager] So that's a big thing for family reunions. It's also a big thing at the state fair. If people will come to the fair and it'll be such and such family, it'll be the Bruxvoort families in that year, they're wearing orange. Yeah. For the next year. The next day will be a different group of families. So you're one of those families?

[Kjeseth] Yeah. So we actually grew up always eating tacos on Fridays. Not sure why this this came about. I think most common people look like a pizza or something, but she's here. But, so we actually have, like, my grandparents last name is Rocco, so it says Rocco Tacos. And that's usually our shirt by we go. And then, you know, we keep growing off of that. Now we do like a bags tournament in the front yard and everyone's driving like downtown to go. They can see us, playing our bags tournament. It's just we're excited to be seeing.

[Yeager] You have this connection to agriculture. Did you always think you wanted to be a farmer? You wanted to be a market analyst? What is it that young Kristi wanted to do?

[Kjeseth] Yeah, my mom's probably giggling back there. So we're not going to talk about that first one that I wanted to do, but, I've always loved numbers, so I am a big number cruncher. So I think that's one of the biggest things when I look at the markets, when I look at commodities, I love to compare carryout levels. I love to compare kind of statistics of say, and you know, what usage did we have here? And so way back in the day, this is a family business. So when I was in high school, my dad ran the business. People would ask me what my dad did and I'd be like, I don't know. He works with farmers, I don't know. And but I always love numbers. So initially I went down in the U of M to get a finance degree. I wanted to be in big finance, corporate. And then slowly but surely, I realized I'm not the corporate type. So, having a family has always been really important to me. I have a great family. I'm very close to everyone in my family, and so I realize that that lifestyle is probably not what I wanted. Shortly before I realized that I think my dad realized it for me. Before that, my dad has a really great job of, like, chirping in your ears, you know, to kind of guide you in a direction. And so he started kind of saying, why don't you just come work for me? Why don't you? You would love it. You'd be great at it. And slowly but surely, he kind of won me over. And that's when I transferred from the U in the cities to NDSU, so I can get some Ag background. So I did not grow up on a farm. That's where I lack is that, you know, when you're talking about that side of things, when I did the crop tour, that was eye opening to me and to see the agronomy side of things, it's really neat to see that side and how there's so many partners that come to help a farm succeed. I love that you have all those niches and avenues, but that's how I ended up getting into it was the finance side of things, and I still to this day, I love numbers, so I started, I think I got my series 3 in 2009. So I worked, my freshman or my senior year of college at NDSU. I still worked, for my parents and then graduated, and they've done it since.

[Yeager] And this was a thing that you instead of the finance life, you decided to get up at four in the morning every day and just look at whatever happened in the overnight trade and what's gone on in Europe. And things like that. So you've just kind of shifted the hours.

[Kjeseth] Yeah. And honestly, I didn't realize that my job would be so much of the therapies side of things.

[Yeager] Oh, you mean when a farmer calls?

[Kjeseth] I did not, I did not envision that.

[Yeager] Kristi, I sold at the low. Help me out, Kristi. What were you thinking? Well, why did you advise me to do this?

[Kjeseth] You do that?

[Yeager] How many times a day do people call in and do that, too?

[Kjeseth] A lot of those conversations that happen, and I will say, I gladly welcome those conversations because I think they're really gross, like growing areas that you can look at your marketing from.

[Yeager] So when you have these conversations, when people call, how do you view… Yes, therapist is one thing, but partner, are you a business? Are you trying to make money off these people that are calling?

[Kjeseth] Yeah, I would say that's probably my favorite part of the job is the relationship side of things that you create over time with individuals. You know, you know what they like to do, what they don't like to do. You know, the ones that will give you grief. Those are my favorite ones. I love when you can kind of go back and forth and kind of go at each other. I think that's so healthy. So, that side of things is really fun for me. So, I like to say a partner. I honestly, you know, I think not just me, but anyone that's in this seat that you're talking about. Every person wants a farmer to succeed. I mean, you might think some people are more bearish. Some people are more bullish, some people are a little bit, you know, out of it, but everyone in this seat is looking to try and help a farmer succeed. So I think that's my, the best part of my job is that relationship side of things. And when you start to grow the relationship, if they're selling corn, for example, you know, say you sold corn in January, we've rallied, you know, $0.40 since then. When you have that relationship, those decisions are easier to make because, you know, it's coming from a good place and you know that it's not like they're having everyone sell at that level.

[Yeager] Should we tell everybody the secret about when they call you? Here's the secret. When you call her, your phone call is recorded because it's by law, right? Do you ever go back and listen to those you don't listen to? Those are for security purposes, right?

[Kjeseth] Not no, I do not go back to those. I think that was actually, you know, one of the hardest things being on this show is hearing my own voice. That's something you really got to get used to. Sometimes I'll look at our shows and I'll be like, what was I thinking? And so you know, you got to get used to that side of things.

[Yeager] Well, let's talk about that. How was your first experience with Market to Market?

[Kjeseth] Yeah. So I, I'm going to go ahead and say this is probably a lot of people's first experience, but I grew up hearing about Sue Martin. That is how I grew up. Once I started I was like, that would be such a dream to be able to be on this show. I think it's such an honor to be able to be on this show. Personally, I think every single market analyst that comes on the show does a fantastic job, but definitely, Sue Martin and just, the difference maker, right? Being a female bold voice in agriculture was something that's really, really great to see. And just changing the dynamic.

[Yeager] Female bold or female bold bullish? 

[Kjeseth] Both.

[Yeager] Them. You can do both. Do you remember watching the show? I mean, besides seeing Sue or just is Sue really the only. 

[Kjeseth] I remember my dad watching it. Right. So if you remember back to saying, you know, what does your dad do? And I just said he worked at farmers, which I'm pretty sure is what my children say about me now. So, but I remember him always watching the show, growing up.

[Yeager] When you got a phone call or an email to come on to the TV show, how was that?

[Kjeseth] I screamed. I was very excited. So this is something that I had really worked towards. Sent a couple of requests and I, I truly enjoy speaking in front of people. I think you can vouch for the fact that the moment I step into the studio and the moment I leave, it's like a little bit, and so I do like talking. So it was so exciting for me. And I just think being able to, you're never going to hear me be super bullish. You're never going to hear me be super bearish. That's kind of my personality. I like to try and stay even keel and work through changes. So just being able to be that voice of, of people, to reach people, to help people because these markets when even when I first started. Right. But especially when my dad was doing this, they were easier, right? There wasn't as many moving parts, and now there are so many moving parts that really takes somebody, trying to take that emotion away and really focus on a plan. So, I truly enjoy it. I feel like it's such a gift to be able to do it.

[Yeager] I've had a chance to talk to many of the people that are in this audience, and I think one of the questions that was submitted to us was, how do you pick people to be on the show? And we had found out about you, had seen you on a couple of panels, asked a couple of people, do you know this Kristi person? Yeah, yeah, I was on a panel with her at Big Iron in Fargo. Or, you know, you just never know when you're asked to speak somewhere, right? Who's kind of paying attention? Yeah, and might be sending notes. So, like, we call it like scouts, we always have people on the scout list. So, but how we pick is, is, like, what Kristi is saying is not super bullish, not super bearish. We've had analysts who've been very bearish. We've had panelists who have been very bullish. We have some in the middle, some that are farmers, some that are brokers, some are just analysts, some are working for big companies. We feel that the biggest thing that we can do is provide a different viewpoint each week. You might come on once every 8 to 12 weeks, and in that time, do you watch others on the show now and do you grade how they do or think, oh, I should say that or what? How come Paul doesn't give me that easy of a question when I'm on?

[Kjeseth] I wouldn't say I grade people. I have been watching it kind of from, even before I was on the show. There's some times that I'd be like, I'm sure if that's how I would answer that. There are some times like that. There's definitely some times I hear things that I'm like, that is such a smart way to look at things. So I think each person really brings it. Sometimes I'm always amazed, like Naomi, for example. For some reason she is just like a wealth of knowledge when she can pull outnumbers and when she can talk about dates. Those are things I'm not as good at remembering dates, remembering those things. I need to kind of look them down and see what they are. So each person brings like a really interesting aspect to the show. And I think, you know, it doesn't have to be this person's right or that person's wrong. I just think that people bring such a great side of the story and geography.

[Yeager] You being from, west central Minnesota, we have a couple out of Chicago, a couple out of, downstate Chicago, Florida, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin. So I mean, for us, it's a geographic thing because the market to market show is, distributed across the country, and it is visible online around the world. We see the numbers. We know Phil, in Canada is a real person? Yes, I've told you that. Right. Feels real. Yeah. It's an old podcast, actually. Really? Yeah. Yeah, we. I actually interviewed Phil. Phil? Sure. But I've met him online twice and we just haven't. He goes, whenever you get to Detroit, I'll come over and chat and I'm going to have him on a future podcast because we're going to talk about his relationship, from the, from the Canadian side. And he always tells people to the Canadian farmers they should watch the American agriculture show because it impacts them. So how global is agriculture for you, and how people here in this audience need to be knowing what goes on in Canada, Mexico, China, Brazil, Argentina and beyond?

[Kjeseth] Yeah, I think everyone's probably sick of hearing about the word tariff, but it is, something that's really impacting agriculture right now. And so being from west central Minnesota, we actually work with a lot of people in North Dakota. A lot of my meeting stretches throughout North Dakota. North Dakota has grown their agro agriculture side of of the state, huge, right. They just put up two new crush facilities. They have, you know, just great features there, right on the to ship out on the PNW. So they've done such great things with agriculture, but a lot of agriculture flip flops between Canada and North Dakota and then Canada and Minnesota. And so I think it's a little things that you don't realize how impactful that's going to be, just the change of pace between the two of them. So it is so global when you look at it. And that's what I'm saying when I said earlier about that marketing was easier back in the day because there weren't that many moving parts. I mean, there's so many times I'll wake up in the middle of night, roll over, check the markets. It's a horrible habit I have, but I'll roll over, I'll check the markets and they'll be going wonky, and it'll be based off something, not even in the United States. So it's really this global part of things. And we have to remember just how much of our grain leaves the United States. Right? So it's very important to see what's going on across the world.

[Yeager] You said, a very interesting part of that. There's more moving parts. There's more parts that can pop the market higher or lower. Whereas before we kind of knew the big ship in the harbor. Now there's six ships and we don't know which one is going to pull ahead at any given moment. So does that make it harder to be in their shoes as a client and as a farmer right now?

[Kjeseth] Yeah, absolutely.

[Yeager] You know, does it make it harder for you then?

[Kjeseth] It does. Right. But I think, for me it's a little bit easier to separate myself. Right? Because I didn't go through all that work to grow that crop. I didn't go through all that work to get it in the bin. I don't have to haul it out. And, you know, I can't imagine having to go into a bin and hauling out really cheap grain that you're not making money on. Like, that must be such a defeating feeling when you're doing that. And so I get to separate myself a little bit from it. So it's a little bit easier for me. But I think even looking at the cattle markets, that's a perfect example of, of how you could be the most prepared person in the world and, and just get railroaded over. Right. As soon as it came out, that you weren't going to see cattle come across the border from Mexico, feeder cattle took off like crazy. And then it's a little rumor. So they're going to start coming across, or they did start coming across. And it's those that you can't predict moving forward. Who would have ever thought that you'd have a worm issue in Mexico and cattle? And so it's those little things that really affect the market that no matter how prepared you can be, it is something that you're always going to have to be used to. So some, some surprises and sometimes those surprises aren't going your way.

[Yeager] I want to go back to the emotion side of what you just said. Because when you talk about you've raised the crop, you've weathered the storm, you've you've watched the rain hit the neighbor and stop half a mile before you. Oh, was that just my farm? Does anybody else have that too? Does that happen? But you, I'm going to go 12 weeks ago.

[Kjeseth] Yeah, I think that the word you just used is business, right? That is the key to your operation is completely to to treat it like a business. And I think that's, you know, producers do a really good job at that when they're looking at seed or crop insurance. They're looking at the costs. They're saying, I, you know, I'm not happy with this cost. Let me look at some other ones where when it comes to marketing, I don't think they're as detailed as it comes when it when it comes to that, you know, looking at it and, you know, for example, looking at the corn price or, you know, the bean price right now, we're on a significant rally and saying, I can make money at this level. You can still be really, really bullish and still make that business decision of saying, I should do something here because I know it's going to put money in my pocket. I know it's going to help me succeed and be planting a crop next year. I know it's going to help me from generation to generation to help out the next round. So it's those tricky things like that to treat it like a business. You can still be really bullish, be making those core choices.

[Yeager] How willing are people now? Maybe, maybe more in your dad’s time or now to make the re ownership decision or or is everybody just pretty I mean what's the percentage of your business that is based on selling off the combine or. I'm only I'm just going to sell it when the price goes to X I at my one co-op.

[Kjeseth] I think the trickiest thing for options is that a lot of people will try options for the first time. They lose money on it and then they're never going to try it again. They're like, nope, I tried it, one's not going to work, not doing it. And I think that's where, I would encourage you to really learn a little bit more about the options, talk to somebody before you put it on and really understand the concept of it. Because to me, I if I have a producer, let's say make a sale, they buy a call because they're still bullish and the call goes worthless. To me, that's a win, right? Because you sold that grain, you took the cash in hand. You can not get charged a ton of interest rate on whatever money you have. You can put it towards other things. Go on a vacation, whatever you want to do, you can do. Right. So that's a win for me. However, it's hard when you can't wrap your mind around that, that you might be looking at a statement. You might be looking at your 1099 at the end of the year and be like, I lost money in my trading account. What is the point of this trading account? So it's really tricky because I call it a win. I saw you succeed. I saw you made a good cash sale. You're never going to really see that cash sale pencil on to a statement, so to say, with the dollar amount. But we have the hard paper copy proving a loss for an option, so it's hard to wrap your mind around it. And options aren't for everyone. And we have to remember a lot of options. A very, very large amount of options go worthless. So it is not a position is to put on and forget about. You really need to make sure you're managing it the entire time.

[Yeager] Do you feel that once you hop into that realm it gets? Does it ever get easier?

[Kjeseth] I think it gets easier. I think you're more knowledgeable on it. The more knowledge, the more power, in my opinion. On everything. Okay.

[Yeager] So all right, let's take a little we should do, you know, remember in elementary school where you had to cover your eyes and then you had to put your hand up? You don't have to look at your neighbor, but who has sold, who has all of their ‘24 crop gone? Okay, who has, more than half gone, sold. Okay. Who's sold some in ‘25 for ‘25 delivery a little bit. Okay. Small sample size. How much ‘25 do you want to be selling right now?

[Kjeseth] We actually just moved. Corn marketing right before the report, hit a price target of 474. That was a long price target objective of ours for quite some time. So we just moved to 30% for new crop, 2025. Granted, we started it a year and a half out. Right? So some of those sales are from a really long time ago. I think the hardest thing, you know, or I shouldn't even say a hard thing, but looking at it, if I had somebody come up to me and say, oh, you're recommending me in 30%, I don't have anything done, should I jump to 30%? I would say no. Right. This is the kind of progression we're on to get to where we need to be. We just moved on 10%, and that's what I would suggest in that aspect.

[Yeager]  What about those who have not sold, their ‘24 crop now, the old crop, where do you where are you at right now as a company in recommendations?

[Kjeseth] Yeah, 100%. We have been for quite some time. So we had moved initially to get 100%, in January. And this is something, you know, you really you don't have to live with the decision you make, right? It doesn't have you don't have to make this decision. And go to bed with it and say, that's that's my life. Right. And so we moved on 100% marketed. You got the January crop report. It was a very, very friendly corn crop report. And we chose to go back and we own corn. We chose to add calls on. And we said, you broke out in the corn market. Looks like you're breaking out. We're above for 62. Let's do it. Let's rip it off. Let's let's just say let's put some calls on. We did make that announcement. We put on the calls. And then our next objective off for 62 was for 92. And at 492 we made the decision to remove calls. So right now we're back to being 100% with no ownership on unless somebody would want it on. And then we kind of just we're continuously looking at price levels. So now our next level is that if you can really get a close above 508, which would be that contract high off March corn, we'll probably look to add calls back on. So one thing to note is that corn statistically has the history has shown us that it doesn't really stay around this level very long. $5. It's usually like well above $5 or well below $5. So this is a really big inflection point for corn.

[Yeager] Right before we started recording, there was a was the report today on this Tuesday. What did that report say?

[Kjeseth] It was a very quiet report. And moving forward, our reports for the next bit until May should be pretty quiet. So we finalized production in January. Moving forward, all of these reports are going to be focused on two main things South America weather. Well, the numbers correlating the weather, right. And the demand. And so really you shouldn't see any massive changes. We did not see any changes in corn, any changes in beans. We saw a slight reduction in carry out and wheat. And then worldwide all our carry outs dropped but nothing drastic. It was like a very boring report. Sometimes I really appreciate a boring report.

[Yeager] So you can do live events like this when you're three hours from your office.

[Kjeseth] It's been a long time since I've been gone for a crop report. Like I was like, whoa! Which is, you know, there are a lot of work, so, hey, I'm actually not all that sad.

[Yeager] We thank you for giving that up to be here. Yeah. So one of the numbers, I don't know if that farmers here that was asking me about it. We were talking about the Argentina number was different than the Brazilian number. We really all pay attention a lot to Brazil, but it's been Argentina lately that has garnered more headlines. Are those warranted?

[Kjeseth] I think so, I mean, you're dry in Argentina, but we need to remember that Argentina grows less than a third of the soybeans that Brazil does. Right. So, to me, Argentina is important. It's going to move the market. But when everything shakes out, it's always like what's happening behind the door, right? What do you have going on behind the door? Because right now you have Argentina dropping a few, right? Million metric tons on production. But USDA has been pretty steady on Brazil. We're in the backdrop. You have a lot of private estimates slowly starting to creep up your Brazil production numbers. And so if we lose 3 million metric tons in Argentina, are we going to eventually just be 3 million metric tons higher in Brazil, where it's a wash? And that's what's concerning to me is that every story has its moment. But I think what we need to remember right now is the Argentina story is kind of every year when we get that story here in the US that we're like, it's dry and the markets kind of take off, how long do we really see those dry stories last? Significantly long. And there's not a ton of them.

[Yeager] But Kristi, the government is just fudging from these numbers to this number to this one to and it's all going to pencil out at the same place. And the end of the day, isn't it? Yeah.

[Kjeseth] So people have hot feelings about USDA crop reports, like there are people that feel very strongly about them. I think that they're a set of data, and I think any set of data is important to the market. Right. I'll take it whatever it is in any form. Once again, knowledge is power to me.

[Yeager] Do you think we'll get to the point where government reports will not exist and we will just have private companies giving the estimates and releasing data just to their customers?

[Kjeseth] If you were to ask me previously, before this, new term from President Trump, I would have said never. But it does seem like he wants to cut government waste, so I wouldn't be surprised if that happened. But I still think it's really an important part of the market. And to be honest. So, you know, one thing that stuck, if you ask me, the one thing that stuck out to me on this crop report, it was that they left the numbers unchanged for corn and unchanged for beans. But the USDA average farm price that gets listed was increased on corn and decreased on soybeans. And that happened last month to and so USDA is acknowledging that even if we're you know, we're sitting here and they cut carryout for beans. They drastically cut the average farm price for beans. And they cut it once again today with no changes.

And so they use those numbers right. It gets tied back around to crop insurance or your PLC. So those numbers do have a use to them that I think that'll keep the the monthly reports prominent. But we've seen some cattle ones cut. So you never know.

[Yeager] This will not be, a very hard exercise. Who's planting more beans this year in ‘25 than last? Yeah. I don't think anybody's going to. And do you suspect that that story. What does that story mean to the market?

[Kjeseth] Yeah, I think this is one of the biggest stories in the next like four months, right. Three months that you're going to hear, the last, the last meeting I was at in North Dakota, it's a section of North Dakota that can actually grow really good beans. They have to crush facilities, new crush facilities that are within driving distance to. And I asked the flip flop question, who's going to plant less soybeans? Every single person raise their hands. And I was expecting like, you know, 50, 70% of people to raise their hand, but there was not a single person in that meeting that was going to plant the same or more soybeans this year. And so I think that story is going to come out eventually. I think that the March 31st, as nervous as I am about the core number, I'm optimistic on the bean number because that's the point of the March 31st report. The March 31st report gives you acre intentions and then says, if you're not happy with these acres, fix it. And that means either corn going down or beans coming up. And to me, there's a big adjustment that has to be made before you could see more Bean Acres. And I don't know if we could achieve it, to be honest.

[Yeager] Okay, then let me ask this question. Who has made their Who's decision on acreage, what you're going to plant done locked written in ink. Who has inked, who's still on the fence about possibly making a change depending on some price? Yeah, that that seems consistent from what we've heard. And so I asked head this as we were done, recording Friday I after we were done recording market plus I said I don't get I said, Ted, I'm kind of done asking questions about acres because it doesn't seem that anybody changes anymore. Your decision in October is your decision in March and in April. Am I wrong?

[Kjeseth] No, I don't think you're wrong. But I would say that it's not. If it's going to change, it's not based off price. I have seen where it's a really nice start to the spring that people will say, well, I might go with some more corn because we're having this great opportunity. So I would say that if you see a shift in acres down the road, it has nothing to do with price. It has to do with the weather side of things.

[Yeager] Let's talk weather where we're at. Yes. Cherokee, Iowa is in the great northwest quadrant of Iowa that grows the most corn. This is also the area that had 10 to 12in on a two day period. Some in a one day period. A crop can change. It can rain everything in June and dry up in August. We had some good yields potential taken off when it was super wet and super dry. However, we still keep growing at least trend line, so if I know that's going to happen, how do I in these seats prepare predict? Just be ready for anything.

[Kjeseth] Yeah. So I think this is a prime example of how I can separate the emotion a little bit better, than a producer when you're talking about that side of things. So this is like five years ago, maybe, maybe even more than that. And, southern Minnesota had a very, very wet start to the season, could not get their crop planted. And I was talking to a producer and he's like, that's it. Nope. I'm putting everything away. I washed up everything. It's done. And like two weeks later and it was like the middle of June and he's like, I'm planting corn. And I'm like, you're doing what? And he's like, come play. And customer's like, it's along the highway. Everyone's going to drive by it every day this summer. And he's like, not a chance that it's not getting planted. And I'm like, I don't think that's the best decision. Like, I don't know if I would do that. And yeah, I mean, yeah, obviously I test weed issues, but it was planted the rest of that season was like a perfect growing season. Right. And so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. But that's where, you know, I can separate it out a little bit more when you talk about it. I'd be far more concerned about a cornfield on a wet year than I want to dry either year. Just feels like all the research team development has gone so far in the drought tolerance that corn has done a really good job at being able to shake off the drier areas.

[Yeager] And everybody knows it rains on everybody else's farm, not their own.

[Kjeseth] You mean like when I first came on Market to Market and it would not rain back home? And every time I came down, it rained and I was like, is this what, like, come on.

[Yeager] That's because you washed, because you washed your car before you came down, right? Isn't that what happens?

[Kjeseth] You guys, my car is in a bad state. That all points. I really should wash it no more than I do.

[Yeager] I washed mine finally, on Saturday, and here we got all this snow in the forecast. We don't have a lot of snow in a lot of the upper Midwest. What we talk about in the wheat market that there's it's cold, there's no snow cover we're going to kill. Let's see. We're going to have our fourth of seven deaths for this wheat crop. What does everybody in corn country and soybean country need to know about the wheat crop right now?

[Kjeseth] Yeah. So I think that you could compare wheat to cat like apparently it has like nine lives. It just will. You can never kill wheat, in my opinion. And so the biggest thing with wheat is that we need somewhere to have a major problem. So when you talk about corn, when you talk about beans, we are king or Brazil is king, right? We can hold the power when it comes to wheat. It's grown in so many areas, and every area that's growing it right now might not have record production, but they're not having a big enough problem. So I think one of wheat's biggest problem is not us. I mean, granted, we have a ton of wheat, but it's that we need somewhere else to have that.

[Yeager] And we have the story in Russia and Ukraine that has been going on for multiple years now. That changes that discussion from what it used to be. But in that time we've developed new markets. India has become a little more interested in they are is it a political. They don't really care who's in power anywhere. They just buy from the lowest. Are there new markets? Are there any more untapped markets that in Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota farmer can benefit from?

[Kjeseth] I don't know, I mean, I think that, you know, the soybean side of things. Yes. You know, crush crush has been huge. It's been so important. It's been such a savior to the soybean market because, you know, I say this and I think sometimes I catch people off guard when I say this, that our exports are about the same as they were when we were in our trade war that killed the bean market. Right. So, we are not exporting much more than where we were. In fact, last year was was really dismal and the reason we're not seeing those $8 beans like we did or the seven 80s, when we were back there, is because of crush and how well we've been able to develop that. And I think that's something so unique. And not only that, you know, you could talk about crush crush facilities as a whole, how beneficial they are to the egg com communities. Right. The job growth and everything like that. So it's huge. But when you look at wheat, I mean, we you continue to see this evolve that people would rather plant corn and beans. Right. Like you're getting into this pattern where they just become more favorable to it, that you're almost like, we maybe I'll use it for a rotation, but it's just lost its luster.

[Yeager] The dairy market is one that is benefiting from a couple of stories, but also concern with some of those same stories of the inverse of that story. Do you see we've hit a point where it's not it's insulated from headlines of, say, bird flu and large cattle prices in the live cattle on the feeder cattle market.

[Kjeseth] Yeah, I think so. And I think that just like you said, Russia and Ukraine, it's been going on for so long. But you could you could see a news article and say, you know, Russia blew up a port and killed this many people in Ukraine and the market wouldn't flinch. Where when we first started this, I mean, that would be a big deal for the wheat market. So it's it's really desensitized itself from the news. And I think that you've also seen that for the bird flu, except for obviously egg prices. Right. That's still a hot topic.

[Yeager] We're still in an area that, you know, we're egg layers. I mean, this is an unfortunate reality that has been in that area where there's been a lot of die populations in barns. Does that impact other commodities right now, this bird flu story?

[Kjeseth] I don't think so. I mean, I think maybe emotionally you could see it, but I don't think a long term change would really ever see it. I think the interesting aspect will be what do you what do you have to take to see domestic, even pork consumption? Right. So when I'm looking at this from an outsider's perspective, I like beef. Prices are so high, even though you're talking about bird flu and it has nothing to do with poultry. You know, some people are like, I'm not going to be buying as much poultry. And I'm still like, why have people not picked up on pork consumption? And that's one thing that's been interesting to me, that you haven't seen that shift happen. I mean, you're starting to see it, but not as aggressive as I thought maybe you would. I think you find your loyalties and you stick with them.

[Yeager] But I've you've seen, pork prices have started to trend higher. But we also we're pretty low where we're coming from. We're still not a great price points for anybody to make a lot of money.

[Kjeseth] No deferred contracts. Summer contracts are getting to a point where they're starting to look a lot better. But there was a real rough period there to start off 2025.

[Yeager] A couple of weeks ago, there was a cattle inventory report that was kind of eye popping. Lowest again since last year, which was the lowest since, you know, the 60s. A heavily hit peak price for cattle right now.

[Kjeseth] Yeah. So I think the tough thing for cattle is that our inventory levels are so low. But like on the back door. Right. What's behind the door is that our weights are so high right now. And so you're making up for that to a degree. The inventory numbers are so I don't want to say fun. Right. But like, attractive to talk about. People like to talk about them. But when everything comes down, you're still having these really large weights. Seasonally. Cattle start to drop off soon. And that's my biggest fear is that you have managed money, at record length. So we, we talked about this the last time I was on the show. So the funds are the longest they've ever been in cattle. And we have, some growing concerns about maybe inflation again. And we have a seasonal tendency for cattle to drop in about 2 or 3 weeks. That's where my concerns come from. Do I think that cash is still going to be supported? I do think that cash is still going to be there, but there's a difference between that futures and the cash side of things.

[Yeager] Yeah. And that that's been one of the big talking points is the huge difference between cash and futures in cattle. And it's inverse right of what it normally is.

[Kjeseth] Yeah. And also a reason why I prefer to market grain versus cattle. And hogs because it's more black and white. Right. You know, like it follows very much closer. Obviously your basis is different at each location, but it is much easier, in my opinion, to see that relationship than it is for cattle.

[Yeager] All right. We are getting to the last couple of minutes here. I know, people have questions. I guess what I want to close with is this, we talked a little bit about trade and tariffs and other countries and whether the market doesn't seem to be as reactive to the tariff talk as much. So if I'm picking up my phone when I'm done to find out what happened here in the last 45 minutes, what do I do with those headlines in that headline that seems to be nonstop when it's impacting agriculture right now?

[Kjeseth] Yeah. And like I said, I'm sure everyone is sick of hearing about tariffs. Like I guarantee it, right? I'm sick of it. And it's my job. Right. But it is so impactful for agriculture. And like you said, it has not reacted to that yet. We buy a lot of products from a lot of countries, like we consume so much here in the United States. The the really only good thing we are sending out is agriculture products, right? We do that so well. And so if we go down that path of having retaliatory tariffs, agriculture is an easy target because it's what we ship out. And so I would say that if you're looking at this situation and you're like, I don't think that tariffs are going to be as bad as they are the first wrong, which I would agree when it comes to China. Right. Like I think we've kind of figured that out. But if you're going down that path, I would say just be really cautious that it does not take much for one story to really impact a market emotionally. That if you had something bad, it would not surprise me to see corn down to 20. It would not surprise me to see beans down 60 in 1 day off news like that. So what I do, and, what I tell guys is that if they want to be really optimistic, if they want to be bullish, that is perfectly fine. Draw a line in the sand. Right. You get up to you get up to $5 for corn. And you're like, I'm not selling below 45. Right? So if we drop back off we get below 45. I'm going to sell something. Right. And so just make sure you're continuously doing that. But not being an awful disregard. Because if you look at what happened last summer, right, that once corn and beans wanted to drop, there was no stopping it. And just like the cattle market's caught is record length or close to a record length for manage money.

[Yeager] What's the phrase stair step up?

[Kjeseth] Yeah, it's escalator up, elevator down. And I firmly believe in that. And it's not fun right. You know, there are really fun aspects of my job and there are really, really depressing, not fun aspects to my job. And that is that, you know, summer Minnesota has like three weeks of summer, guys. And so when you start to drop off the court and everything is depressing, really screws everything up because we're only allowed to enjoy so much.

[Yeager] We've enjoyed having you here. Thank you so much for doing this. I appreciate it. Kristi  Van Ahn-Kjeseth. Please give her a big hand.

[Yeager] And we will see you again on the show soon. I want to thank everybody here at the Cherokee County Ag Show that allowed us to take over this room. And thanks to the Iowa PBS staff, I have two of my bosses here. I don't know what that means. I hope there's not an empty box. And thank you back. Cameron and Dave and Peter. Carlyn is here. Tiffany is here as well. So thank you all. Thank you all for coming. I appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of your time. And a reminder that the MToM podcast comes out each and every Tuesday with a new episode. It's sometimes great like this live and in person. Or it could be on automation of agriculture or what's going on in Russia/ Ukraine. We've got a weather one in the works. We've got a little bit of farmer health, mental health. So we try to keep it all covered. So thank you so very much for watching and we'll see you next time.