Welcome everyone to this weeks Agfinity Newsletter. Once a month or so I have the lovely chore of cleaning out the stalls of the small barn at my place. This barn houses a beautiful and monstrous Belgium horse, a stubborn donkey, two ornery mules, two relaxed lamas and two miniature horses. I almost forgot, two pot belly pigs. The amount of manure these animals can produce always boggles my mind and it is always seems like a very large and “crappy” job to undertake.
An area full of manure to fork out by hand, which gives a guy an awful lot of time to think. In the first few hours I started thinking of how this larger, unpleasant job can be broken down into three smaller jobs, the pens. After that it can be further broken down into layer by layer. At this point I get side-tracked thinking about how the layers of manure relate to the onion metaphor. We all know this metaphor of an onion whose layers are gradually peeled back, first the ones that are visibly visible, then the hidden protected inner sections. This onion metaphor is often used to help resolve a conflict- people’s deeply felt needs. Alas, this is another newsletter topic all together.
Back to the trampled down layers of manure. I then start thinking of how this can be related to many life scenarios. The first one I related to was work. At the beginning of the day, or at any time of the day, it can seem like there is a large volume of stuff (like manure but not really manure) to work on, which can be overwhelming to think about. When we look at it as one whole day of work or all at once it can be overwhelming. However, if you start peeling off the work by layers, before long we have achieved a sizeable amount of work, like a pen. Then it is off to the next pen full of stuff again. Then we start to peel off tasks one by one or layer by layer and finish that pen. Then before you know it a large volume of stuff has been finished…. Like the whole barn.
This cleaning out the barn job can also be related to living a more mentally healthy life. Mentally healthy to me is getting to the point of being able to take the time to stop and smell the roses, living life one step at a time. When we live our lives looking at the whole day, week, month, or year we can get easily be overwhelmed. We are looking at too big of timeframe with too many things to do and too little time. If we can focus on peeling off tasks one at a time. we can be assured that we will accomplish a large volume of our daily, weekly responsibilities and still be able stop and smell the roses instead of missing them before the day, week and even the year is over.
In the last hour, a funny thing I was thinking about during the forking out manure job was marketing grain and how maybe the person who thought of the phrase peeling off loads to describe incremental selling could have thought of this while forking manure. Instead of looking at a large volume of commodities to sell all at once, with one contract, selling off one load or a few loads with multiple contracts can maybe make marketing a less overwhelming or risky job.
On an ending note, maybe we can all take time to stop and smell the roses, especially after jobs like forking manure. Have a wonderful week.
Because Farming is Forever Bryce Taylor
Thanks a lot Karen Mac for this great photo!
Thank you very much Lisa Kosheiff for this beautiful photo!
Market Report – Joseph Billett
Canola futures continue their downward trajectory, falling to the lowest level since June 2021. The recent fallout in global veg oil crude margins, where soybean margins have softened is one of the factors effecting canola. The only support canola is seeing right now is from a slightly weaker Canadian Dollar.
May canola fell $9.20 yesterday to $729.40/MT, July was down $10.80 at $719.50/MT, and November lost $11.70 to $697/MT.
New Crop Canola off-combine bids are being seen around $15-15.50/bu or $660-685/MT for September shipment. This is a $3/bu drop from last year’s new crop levels. Sellers going quiet at these lower levels. November canola has support at $700/MT but main support is more around $680/MT. Major resistance at the $775/MT level on the November futures.
Overall markets are softening, and demand is being met for buyers. They can pick and choose opportunities and are still using a hand to mouth strategy for their purchasing.
Delivered Lethbridge:
Feed Barley: Mar – $8.82-8.93/bu or $405-410/MT DLVD (Down $0.11/bu or $5/MT) Apr-June- $8.93-9.04/bu or $410-415/MT DLVD (Flat from last few weeks) – Sept-Oct -$7.84-7.95/bu or $360-365/MT DLVD (flat over the last few weeks as well)
Feed Wheat: Mar-May $10.89-11.16/bu or $400-410/MT DLVD (slightly softening)
#2CW Oats: March-April –Covered please contact us for a bid – May-June $4.30/bu or $278.82/MT (Limited Tonnage)- July-September $4.35/bu or $282.06/MT- Sept-Dec $4.50/bu or $291.79/MT (New Crop) – Limited space into these sales is more of a concern than the drop in price. When the opportunities are gone the price will likely disappear as well.
Feed Oats: March – June $4.15-4.35/bu (Limited Tonnage) – up slightly for May – June but very limited tonnage available
For a history of trades and grain pricing in your area please go to Agfinity.com or give us a call at 1-888-969-5552, also check out our Agfinity App available for IOS or google play the link for that is available on our website as well.
This is Joseph Billett with Agfinity thanks for your time and remember that Farming is Forever.
