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Head Of Tech · Professional Ag Marketing Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Professional Ag Marketing Podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: If you want a deep dive into the ag markets and risk management strategies, your search is over.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Come here after every Friday to get your weekly commodity recap.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Trading commodity futures and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: This is your host, Mike Minor.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get started.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: This is Mike Minor, and this is Professional Ag Marketing here, our uh podcast for 214 here.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to talk about the markets here for a handful of minutes, and then I'm going to interview our head of technology, Kate, and he's going to talk about a little bit of what we've done, what we're working on, and then a little bit of the outlook of technology in this industry.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: So let's get started with uh what we've seen this week from a marketing perspective, Kate.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: And uh when I look at the hog market first, I mean we've uh covered a lot of it in the hog market put talk podcast in our other series, if you want to go check that out, which usually come out on Wednesdays there.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: So take a look at that from yesterday's episode.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: We had a really good chat there.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but we basically talked about a strong cash market with$92 hogs.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: We've seen supply that's manageable and a little bit lower kills.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: So Packers are trying to cut back, but hey, that lower supply is uh is a good sign for demand going forward with cutout at around$100 here.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: So overall, we've seen uh pretty good demand.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Supply is manageable, and we've seen really good fundamentals here.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: We don't see any expansion in the sow herd, and uh we've seen some really good things to talk about here in this hog market over the past couple months, but especially today here is we've got some pretty good margins and opportunities here going forward.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: So uh those were a few things on the hog market here.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the cattle market's been running as well uh here real recently.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: We had a nice setback, but uh this week we did find some technical support.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, watch out for these cutting kills.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we've seen uh a little bit of a pullback there and some talk about Saturdays getting cut, and then uh we've seen a falling cutout here recently, just a little bit, a little bit to maybe keep an eye on, but nothing to get crazy concerned about at this point.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think just packer margins are pretty pu poor in this environment, so that's uh what we've been worried about because if you start cutting kill and cutouts dropping, we got some red flags out there to watch for sure.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: But otherwise, let's talk about the grain market here a little bit.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: I've got some interesting things to talk about on the wheat market.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Today was a massive day in the wheat market this Friday here.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: We saw a lot of changes uh through this uh grain complex lately in direction and uh fun money flow.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: But uh on the wheat side especially here, we were up 22 at the close today on Chicago wheat, so right at six bucks on that March.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a really interesting one to watch.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: The uh corn and soybean markets, yeah, funds erased their net short positions early on and uh built a little bit of a long position there.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh good balance sheets were a reason, along with fears of inflation, so they built up a little bit of a long there.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: And now wheat they've held on to their short positions, which with some short covering now, we are seeing a little bit of a rally.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: So very interested to see what these uh CFTC uh data shows on commitment, a traders report going forward, and how much progress they're actually making on that.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: But today was a pretty significant day in the wheat market.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: You also saw a lower dollar, I think, helped the grains out today, which was worth mentioning.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, that's a pretty good statistic there uh that uh uh you could be watching today that's impacting our export programs pretty aggressively in these egg markets.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: So that makes a big difference along with uh, you know, pretty pretty scary uh weather situation going on.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: This cold snap that went through, not the most conducive to uh wheat growing regions in the United States, anyway.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: So a few things to watch there on the grain side, a few things kind of highlighted on the hogs and the cattle, but nonetheless, volatility has definitely been going up here through the crop averaging time frame in February, and uh with us being about half done on the averaging period, very close to last year's number at 469 on corn and uh about a buck lower on beans year over year there.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna kick it off over to Cade here.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: He's gonna talk a little bit about what we've been doing at professional ag marketing and uh what we're working on currently and and kind of what the outlook is for technology in our industry.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: So how's it going, Kate?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks, Mike.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: My first podcast experience.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: This is your first experience on the podcast.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that is unfortunate.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: We'll have to get you on a little bit more often talking about some of the fun things on the technology side that we got going on here at Pro Ag.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, these are always fun things, and if you haven't been watching these podcasts or following along with professional like marketing, we recently released our professional Pro Ag Power platform that is useful to our customers and helps get in their data in a more savvy way now as we enter the 21st century.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so not I mean it's taking their information and making it incredibly readily available for them on a URL, so a website, compiles it all and puts it in a very easy way to read, highlights everything, puts it in in a form that they want to look at it, right?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: For their information on their farm.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's exactly right, Mike.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we wanted to get rid of the spreadsheets and sending over emails, so we're upgrading to this platform that allows customers to sign on and view their positions like that.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um so with power released, we know that there's gonna be ever-coming changes as there is with most platforms.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: So our we're excited to start releasing into cattle and grains coming soon, which will be very cool to those producers as well.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Those look awesome and they're right around the corner.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: That that we're really not too far away from the new update there releasing the grain and cattle.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're super excited about that.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: We think it'll be very beneficial here at ProAg.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're also excited to start diving into some more industry data on the professional egg marketing side, um, where we can get those reports that are charted by us but more accessible again.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, just kind of getting getting data at the fingertips of who those who need it.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we make a bunch of charts, we gather a bunch of data, whether it be cutout or whether it be exports, and it one, we need it to be readily available for our customers so it's easy to find.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then two, kind of helping them realize what to look at or what to what should you be looking at this week rather than just keeping an eye on a hundred different things every week, right?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: We can highlight things that are happening or we think that are cool, and that'll be very helpful to our risk managers here.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that'll be located within power?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it'll be behind our sign-on, which uh you'd get the sign-on from contacting us at professional like marketing, and um yeah, it'd be behind it, and you'd be able to view those charts on any time of day.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: So if you had to describe power and uh and the data industry that's coming into it in just a couple sentences to make it simple for our listeners, what would it be?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say it's easy, accessible, um, and readily available for those who need it.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um power explained shortly is just what we do at the fingertips of our customer.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Very summarized.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, exactly.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we're looking forward to not only with power, but we have website changes coming as well.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're looking at a new release of a new site, hopefully coming very soon, get a release date on that.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that'll be interesting.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, what are a few of the changes uh formatting-wise on the website or information readily available?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: What what do we see that's changing?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then some of the things like uh our futures markets on the website, for example, that format won't be changing.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, one of the things a lot of people love about our website is that you can pull up the main page and you can pretty much see all of the egg markets right there.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: There's no clicking, no scrolling, it's just all readily available.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, like that won't be changing, for example.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: But what are some things that are changing?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Correct, yeah.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: We we wanted to make sure that the futures market stayed on touch there.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's a very important part of what our site is used for, so just keeping that available.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: But um, we want to kind of call out more to our professional egg marketing culture here in this new site, and as long as we're diving into this industry data, we're gonna try to provide that on the front end of the site as well, which will be very helpful for customers and prospects to look at.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: So if you look forward in technology and specifically risk management in our industry, what are some things that you're looking at with like AI, for example, which is a huge hot topic right now?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: AI is on the forefront of most technology conversations here, and it's on our minds as well here at ProAg.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, we we know the uses of AI around internal uses as we can use it to uh dive into research and help us forecast predictions, but it should help us to fork forecast most of our charts as well that we keep track of and help us find data that we're not using in the best ways and maybe use it better.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And just like how everyone's using AI, it's adapting and we're adapt we're trying to adapt with it.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we're taking uh an AI model, building it out, teaching it every day, and then just having it help us basically gather information quickly, um sort through information quickly for us, and then finding that uh and giving it readily available to our customers, essentially.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and at some point AI will likely in our website as well be available for our customers, correct?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: That is the plan and the goal for that AI.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: Even like power, for example, on your own uh on your own spreadsheets and things like that.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: So uh just eliminating workload, simplifying, organizing, that that's what AI is all about, right?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Correct, yep.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: And there's it'll probably adapt too as years go on, and that's just how AI will work.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot are we seeing AI readily available on a lot of websites and in businesses already, you think, or is a lot of it to come?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like look at your typical Google search and all that has changed lately.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: You search now any question you may have, and you don't even have to click into a site anymore.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: It gives you an AI summarization at the top, and that's one very good use of it that people are finding a use for it.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but on websites around the world right now, yeah, like you'll see those chat bots show up, and some are helpful, some are not, and it just depends on how they're built.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so building a helpful bot would be the best way to go at this.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: We want we want it to be used widely.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, uh uh it is Valentine's Day, so the the one I used it for today, Cade, was that about 80% of the flowers in the US are imported, and about 70% of all of those are from Colombia.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: So you those are Colombian flowers here.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Colombian flowers getting thrown around on Valentine's Day here.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it that was a fun fact that popped right up at the top.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, I didn't even have to click a link on Google, and it just popped right up.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, and there's other uses for it as well, too.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like we've seen uh the rise of Chat GPT, uh Gemini co-pilot the Microsoft one.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um just these they're John Deere's just had a huge conference on AI.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and these these uh GPTs are just taking your text and turning it into a language that a computer can understand better, and it converts its own thinking back into text that we understand better.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it's that's a big way it has improved, and there's unthinkable ways that have that are coming in the future.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, for the industry and for us, I think technology, we're gonna have some really interesting things going forward here at Professional like marketing and that uh lead the industry in technology for uh availability industry-wide, for research, for your spreadsheets, uh getting into URL-based versions, uploading trades into your spreadsheets automatically, things like that that are gonna make information readily available to our customers faster than anyone and uh more accurately than anyone, even more importantly.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: So looking forward to it.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly right.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, well, thank you for your time, Kate.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it, and we'll have you on next time.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks for having me, Mike.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you to all our listeners.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Please reach out to us at professionaleggmarketing.com.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Check out our other podcast as well, Professional Egg Marketing, that's released every Friday.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Trading commodity futures and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: See you next time.