Welcome to the February one. It's already February here in 2024. Uh, extreme Ag Webinar. Uh, I'm your host Damien Mason. We got Matt Miles here. We got Johnny Rell, we got Kelly Garrett, we got special guest, Jared Creed. Again, we want this to be interactive. We're gonna throw a lot of information at you, and the more you bring your questions, the more you might help not only yourself, but somebody else that's joining in live or watching the recording, because they probably have some of the same questions you do. We're talking about marketing and crop insurance strategies to keep you financially solvent. We're mapping out a 2024 where input prices have not come down. Johnny Rell and I just talked about that in a recent recording of the business of the, uh, cutting the Curve podcast. And we also are talking about commodity prices that just won't quite get to where we're, we're happy about executing sales. So it's gonna be a trying time. It's gonna be kind of a tough sled also coming off of three of the most record high net farm income years in the history of the United States agricultural system. 21, 22 and 23. So it's gonna be an adjusting time. Yes, agriculture's been through some challenges before. It wasn't that long ago. We had break even years. Well, it's been a while since we, uh, took this quick of a downturn. So that's why we wanna make sure you're prepared. You don't join extreme ag just to learn agronomics. You learn to keep your business solvent. Remember, there is no sustainability. If your business isn't around for tomorrow, it's not sustainable. So that's what we're talking about today. Kelly did a neat thing Kelly put on social media when he teased this webinar asking you to join. He said, this is the most important webinar of the year. It's not about more bushels, it's not about new, uh, products that we're putting on for soil enhancements. It's not the sexy stuff about machinery, but it's the most important webinar of the year. Kelly, why'd you say that? Because it sets the stage for our income for all year. It's a lot of fun to talk about putting on a new foliar or getting a new tractor or putting a system on your planter. But the marketing is the dollars and cents. This is very much the business side of agriculture. The averaging period for the multi cropp started today and for the next 12 months. What starts today and goes throughout the month of February. And then when we make our final elections for crop insurance on March 15th, that that has more to do with our bottom line than anything else we talk about. Johnny, you and I just recorded yesterday an episode that's gonna release later this month, presumably, of the cutting the curve. And I kind of have a little bit of a ongoing series with the guys, and we love to hear from you on the business side of agriculture. And we talked about, uh, strategies, and we've done a couple of this we did with the other guys, you know, Kelly and, and, and Galen Beer was one of our guests on this about cutting back on some fertility and some things like that. It's, you can't, you can't cut your way to prosperity. You can't just, you know, you can't just stop spending your way to a successful farming operation. I think that that's something that you came through on the recording yesterday, but it ties right into marketing and crop insurance. You still need revenue. Speak to me. Yeah, so I mean, one of the, the biggest things we need to do, we need to be able to set these floors and make sure we've got a guarantee in place because with the volatiles the market's been in the last two months, we're not sure how volatile it could be in the next three or four months going into planting season. So, you know, we were talking yesterday about how, where I'm located at, it'll be middle of April before we do a final crop plan, right? We got a good plan in place today, but depending on what the inputs do, what the future prices do, the next few, few months could really affect what we end up doing going into the season. So for us, it's just make sure we understand how all the systems work, make sure we've got the right foundation in place, and have a good partner, like somebody like Creed there that can really help explain all the new, new programs that are coming out. 'cause usually they work all the way across the country, but sometimes some of 'em are a better fit for our location. Yeah, and Im speak to that thing. I I hope that you, you, you agree with that you can't cut spending your way to prosperity you. We still have to, you still have to maximize revenue and look at revenue programs that can obviously protect you. And that's where I think that, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna go with this today. And you're, you're, you're a believer. That's right. Matt Miles, um, you're in the, you're an delta. There is a perception that things are very different. You do have different weather down there, but before we hit the record button and before we let the door open, Jared Creed said, let's not let these people think there's vast differences in these programs from, uh, one state or one region to the other. So you obviously are protecting yourself. You're all about revenue. You love to maximize revenue. When you think about this topic, marketing and crop insurance strategies for this year, what do you think? Yeah, well, I, I agree with Kelly, you know, in a year like this, especially with inputs high and, and, and commodity price is low. Same thing with Johnny. We've got, you know, we still don't know a hundred percent what our what our crop mix mix is gonna be, but this is the most important time to pay attention to your crop insurance and definitely your marketing. You know, we all want to get the high, but we all need to stay in business. So, so making sure that we get protected in, in different ways between the marketing and the crop insurance is the, is the base of this thing to be able to survive into 25. Matt, when you think about, okay, just the, just a couple years ago when I started working with you guys, you know, we still have $7 corn and all that, then you think, man, it's time to really ring the bell and this is where you're gonna put your marketing in place and you're gonna grab, you're gonna sell some $8 corn. And you get real excited about that number. But you could argue, like you said, it's times when things are really tight that maybe you're not ringing a bell, but you're living to fight another day. And that's, I think where these, these strategies like we're gonna talk about tonight, come into play. Am I right? Absolutely. And we've got one of the, the best with, with Jared here, and, and he is worked with Kelly. So Kelly can give the experience from the farmer that where Jared's made him money. So, all right, I think let's lead him away. Kelly. Um, you started working with Jerry Creed, uh, at Win. And, um, the idea is, uh, you, you, you sought out, we did a recording a couple years ago. Does your farm need a CFO? And I think that's how you started viewing Jared as was the chief financial officer for Garrett Land and Cattle. So take it away. Yes, I've known Jared since 2012. We've started working together, or I started working with him as his customer in 2020. Not only does Jared offer the marketing services now, he offers insurance services and really just the financial overview of the farm, everything that goes through the Garrett Land Cattle bank account. His staff puts somewhere into a cattle, into a cattle yard, into a soybean field, into a corn field, whatever is appropriate. And we know exactly what our costs are. Um, you know, I've always been confident of my business side of agriculture, and I didn't think that I needed much help in the financial part. I was wrong. My costs weren't as tight as I thought they would be. And, uh, now I'm even able to be more aggressive in the decisions I make because of the data I get from Jared. And a lot of people I've heard talk about tying crop insurance to marketing. I've never met anybody that actually did it then until I started working with Jared. And it, I don't know how you do one without the other now. And his system to me is, is simple. It's wonderful. And, uh, it lets me sleep at night. By the way, that's, that's, that's right there. That lets you sleep at night. So Jared Creed, um, Will's gonna make you the host, but before you start sharing slides, give us the overview of what we're going to hear and then you're gonna show us some slides. Well, I hope the main takeaway from all this, Damien, and first off, thank you for the invitation to do this. The main takeaway is the crop insurance programs have evolved so much over the last several years. And with the recent volatility, we have to look at crop insurance as nothing more than a hedge. It is a hedge on revenue, and it is either an active hedge or it is not an active hedge. There is no in-between and constantly needing to, uh, validify the risks that a producer holds during a growing season based upon the prices that the government provides us, and putting that together versus one's cost of production. And the crop insurance markets have evolved so much in the last decade that there have been numerous programs developed to simply act as a hedge well ahead of time. Everybody has a different marketing bias. Uh, everybody has a different marketing, um, willingness, risk tolerance. At the end of the day, crop insurance can be a substitute to it. If you choose to be a sideline participant on marketing until the crop gets into the bend, you better be looking at eliminating as much revenue risk as you possibly can with whatever tools necessary. And, you know, the last thing that I wanna make sure, um, is loud and clear. We talk a lot about cost of production, cost of fertilizer, cost of chemicals, cost of machinery. There is only one business in all of the United States that has a government backed taxpayer backed revenue put, and we can't abuse it. And quite frankly, 2024 might be one of the most important years to make sure that whatever tool you, you choose to elect for your farm, that it's gonna keep you whole for the next 12 months. Because that's our goal with our clientele right now, is just make money. Sound like Trump drill, baby bill. Just make money this year. Just make money. By the way, I, I, I want a full disclosure here. Say that I have seen some farm folks that instead of, instead of realizing that Jared is on their side, get crossways. 'cause he said, you're in the only industry that has a government backstop to guarantee you revenue, to keep you solvent. And they, they want to be insulted. The point he's making is, no, don't be insulted. Realize you have something that, uh, the dry cleaner down the street maybe does not have. If you utilize this tool effectively, your dry cleaner thrives or at least lives to, you know, pass on the legacy. So I think that's the important disclaimer right there. Um, he's gonna start sharing his slides. Before he does that, I wanna remind you if you are, uh, tuned into our webinar, and I hope that you keep up with our social media feed. This week's pretty exciting. Just yesterday, the Extreme AG Show launch. The Extreme Ag show is better than any reality TV I've ever seen. It's real. It's the guys, it's it's at their farms, it's behind the scenes stuff. It's the real side of the extreme AG farmers. And we're telling a story about American agriculture. We're talking about the things that happen out there. The cinematography is amazing. The sound quality is great. This is not, this is not some crappy, you know, a kid with a, a Kodak in his bomb's basement. This is a professionally done production and I want you to tune into it. It's gonna be coming out every two weeks. We have 23 episodes slated. You'll be seeing all of us, even including me for some behind the scenes stuff. So, uh, mark your calendar, but more importantly, check out extreme ag. We have a YouTube channel. It's the extreme Ag YouTube channel just going YouTube type extreme ag free to subscribe. And also we're on Watch Acres tv. That's the streaming platform The Hefty Brothers started. It's watch acres tv.com. Anyway, Jared, take it away with your first slide All. Danny, can you confirm for me you got a good view? I got a beautiful view and it says 2024 effective crop marketing strategies with multi peril crop insurance. And what I think is really interesting is you're gonna continually combine crop insurance, marketing, marketing, crop insurance, and I think you're gonna go ahead and, and make sure that the, the people tuning in realize that they, they walk down the same aisle together for your success. Absolutely. So first off, I do feel for the US agriculture producer, for the amount of volatility that we've experienced, the last 12 to 18 to 24 months, emotions ran high on the way up from seller's remorse, emotions got even worse, and quite frankly, clammed up as the market cratered. It's a tough business. Trading futures for a living is a very tough business. Very few people succeed. So to imagine that the US producer across 240 million acres of principal crops are all great traders, great marketers, it's an absurd assumption. It's such a tough business. And just looking at the last three years of a corn chart, it's no secret, $3 corn to almost eight and a half dollars corn, and almost all the way back to $4 corn with a lot of places being sub $4 cash corn. The trick within all of this is that I wanna lay out an example, Damien, you're gonna be my producer here. You're gonna make an insurance election on March one. And basically what you are doing is you are agreeing to receive a check from the government the second you plant your crop for no less than that. You will get no less than that check that they give you. But by the way, if your overall revenue is greater than that check, you, you get to keep that as well. That right there is an emotional lift. It takes the fear away, and we always have the ability to control just how big that check is. So I would just wanna do a couple comparisons here. And in this slide we're using Iowa State cost of production figures. So personally, I think the Iowa State cost production figures are always a little bit low, but it kind of drives home to the point, the green dots that is corn base prices established in the month of February, dating back to 2022, prior to the 2008 economic crisis. I started to track those break even per bushel from Iowa State. And you can see many years from that 2008 to 2013 timeframe, we had the ability to elect insurance policies at prices well above our cash break even. It takes time for costs to follow the markets. It takes even longer for those costs to follow the markets back down. But what I think is scary here is you look at all the money made in agriculture from 2008 to 2013, and just how fast that money was given away from 2014 to 2020, we were not able to ensure above a breakeven. Now I'm gonna have another slide just like that in a second, but I wanna put in another visual. Let's imagine I'm just a Midwest corn producer that's spending $1,050 an acre on a 205 bushel corn a PH. First off, nobody that's in this webinar is trying to grow their a PH. Everybody's trying to grow above and beyond their a PH grow as many bushels as you possibly can, but your a PH is associated with your social security number. It is your revenue backing from the government. So 1,050 costs 2 0 5 a PH and 85% coverage level and 174 bushel an acre guaranteed. That is pivotal right there, guaranteed bushels. We all want as many bushels as we possibly can. Why wouldn't we buy as many bushels as we possibly can from the government as well? And in that process, in the event we were able to see December corn sometime in the growing season, advance all the way to $6 a bushel, your insurance policy has increased in value from four 80 to six bucks. As in you have in more or less an annuity within your insurance policy that has increased in value and backed by the government giving you the ability to market every single bushel you're guaranteed. Again, some producers don't have the willingness to do so, and that is fine. However, have to identify what risks are associated, both good and bad. I wanna drill home on one point here. This is going to be a important thing for all US producers to understand. If our insurance price ends up being $4 and 80 cents for corn, if you're electing an 85% insurance policy and you yield your a PH come harvest, you're not getting anything from your crop insurance until the market goes down to at least a little bit above $4. That is one of the most simple concepts that everybody needs to understand about revenue protection, crop insurance, a revenue based policy, oftentimes there is a, a, a myth per se that the crop price is lower than the insurance price, meaning that the farmer does not need to do anything, and that can't be any farther from the truth. If you glance down to just purchasing a 70 or 75% insurance policy. There's not a lot of American producers that can withstand planting a corn crop this spring and risk selling it for an low threes. And that is a huge per acre risk. Now, I wanna translate that into that same graph again. This time we're looking at 85% of the insurance press. It's very easy to see. Now why that stretch from 2008 to 2013, so much money was made because we're taking that insurance price times 85%. And then from 2014 to 2020, why so much money was lost, we were not able to insure ourselves to a profit. Fast forward to today, and you look at prior years across that chart, I don't think we've ever had as much risk as we have today. No secret costs are crazy high. Ask yourself honestly, what expenses can lower, uh, can go lower in the next 12 to 24 months to offset the price drop that we've had. By the way, Jared, real quickly hop in here if any of the guys wanna hop in from Johnny to Matt to Kelly, the point that in case somebody that's watching this has a question, also, if you, if graphs, if the graphs are moving a little too fast. But I think the big takeaway here is on the number 24, 20 24 vertical line, we've got the biggest spread that it looks like, it looks like the biggest spread in recent history of the spread between what you can insure for and what our actual cost of production is. And that's, that's the, that's the biggie here on 2024. Am I, am I getting the, the biggie That's very accurate And that's, uh, that, you know, like you said, five and a quarter is five and a quarter seem like an accurate number on cost of production In our book, yes, you can get through all kinds of different farms, and I would, uh, I would argue that it's gonna be either side of five bucks by maybe a 15 to 20 cent range. Matt's nodding his head. So it's even worse if a producer's not carrying 85%. And what makes it even more dangerous is, again, we're all trying to grow more than our A PH. Yes. And that price support goes lower the higher your yield is almost finding ourselves in a situation to put blood, sweat, and tears and a lot of money and growing as big of a crop as we possibly can, and watching the market go lower and lower and lower, and realized that that 2020 $5 an acre perhaps, that we spent on our crop insurance didn't do anything for us. And, you know, a little bit of a a, a polite pet peeve per se, is every farmer is buying technology, equipment, seed, fertilizer, chemical, and every purchase, we have a purpose for that purchase. We know what the result is supposed to be. We know how to get the most value out of it. Oftentimes, crop insurance is just purchased and overlooked until I have a problem. And anymore, it is a marketing tool more than anything. Just a real quick slide. The same type of concept looking at soybeans, say in a $700 cost of production and a 60 bushel a PH. Quite frankly, I think 700 is too cheap for a 60 bushel a PH, uh, based upon the information that we see. You can see again that the difference of the guarantee versus our cost is around a hundred dollars an acre. I would argue that it's probably closer to 150 to $200 an acre. Uh, and the same risk goes that if I'm buying an 80% policy and our insurance price is 1190, if the harvest price is down at $10 and we're selling beans and $9 cash and change, we're not gonna have anything come from our crop insurance for that drop in revenue. So it's a very slippery slope to consider here, and this is kind of where the rubber meets the road. We've seen it happen before, and I'm fearful that we might see it. Again, I'm not advocating a bullish or bearish stance in the market, it's just reality again, that we're spending a lot of money. Damien, and you and I have talked about this over the last year, that the US ag space has found themselves woefully, massively put whatever adjective you want to it, undersold versus historical. But if insurance policies were purchased correctly in the last 12 to 18 months, they were able to withstand a downside price drop much more safely. And I'm a little fearful that that drop in income from 2013 and forward might be a lot more aggressive. This go around, especially when you start factoring in today's interest rates that a farm is exposed to. So as we're thinking about our 2024 election, these are my top four that I like to tell everybody, what's the revenue guarantees gonna be down year on year for, for heaven's sake, don't buy a policy and don't review it until October. There is a monetary value to your insurance policy every single day until it is done guaranteed bushels are pivotal. That goes back to the slide again, that in the event we have a massive market move that is unbeknownst to any of us as of today. You have a green light if you so choose to market all the way up to your guarantee and basically ensure yourself your own profitability. Additional products, this is a piece that when you get across the countryside, it will vary. But the RMA has created a wealth of various products that is now available from from coast to coast, and they operate the exact same way, and they are all revenue based. So let's talk about those RMA products for just a second. And again, if anybody has any questions, just stop me. Most recent additions to the insurance program is for sure, SCO and ECOI shouldn't say most recent, but most popular, uh, S-C-O-E-C-O simply stacked on top of a producer's insurance policy. If you are buying an 80% multi peril policy for your specific crop, you have the option of purchasing SEO and ECO to ensure a bracket of coverage from 95% down to 80%. Your MultiPro policy key piece in here, it is on the county. They are great products for producers that trend well with the county, not matching yields, but more so if the county yield goes up or down. You want to see historically your correlation, your yields move up and down with the county. These are heavily subsidized programs. If you're talking about being able to go clear up to 95% coverage, that's buying a 5% deductible. Any, like any other walk of life, any purchase that we make that we have to buy insurance on, you are buying an insurance policy that has a 5% deductible. And also, by the way, ECO and SEO operate the exact same way as multi peril. The spring price is established in February, harvest price in October, meaning if the harvest price is higher in October, S-E-O-E-C-O is gonna recalculate itself all once again. Now again, key reminder, those are county based, but they stack on top of your multi perial policy, but they are heavily subsidized from the government. The recent darling in the space has been margin protection becoming now widely available. And I can't remember what I saw today. 14 different crops throughout all the us. Uh, quite frankly, some crops that I've never even heard of. Uh, however, margin protection is something that is bought earlier and it acts as a true hedge in my opinion. Even in our book of business. We have producers that do not have the, uh, and it's not a knock on them, that it's just not their mo to be as aggressive as maybe what they would like to be through a growing season when they're scared about what's in the field and maybe a little worrisome about what the market may or may not do. Margin protection is 95% coverage in accounting, and every dollar lost is paid at 120%. It saved the bacon of so many producers in the last two years. It's not even funny. It has acted Cash. Jared, yes, Jared. Hey, Jared, I want to, I want to cover these from a farmer perspective just because we've heard quite a bit and I wanna make sure that anybody that's tuning in now or that is watching the replay doesn't get overwhelmed because this is, you dabble in this as your business and for the person that, uh, is a farmer, it's, it's always, it can be a little overwhelming. Is there any perspective here you wanna gimme on this? First off, uh, Kelly, you're the one that's, uh, sitting there next to him. Is there anything that, um, that you wanna share from the farmer perspective to make this clarified and, and bring it home? Well, this is where I feel that insurance is the same for every farmer across the country. I don't care what region you're in, it's mass gross bushels times revenue coverage times dollars, dollars per bushel. And I wanna set my floor as high as possible. There are so many farmers that think the only way they collect on crop insurance is from a bushel loss way more times, probably seven and a half times out of 10, 75% of the time when I've collected on crop insurance in my farming career, it's a revenue claim. I've still raised the big crop, but the ball bottom has fallen out of the board of trade, which is what is happening this year. And when you look at these products, these three products that are on the board right now, when you can raise your, when you, uh, ECO, you can go from 95, 80 6% when I can set that floor higher margin protection. You know, right now we're still waiting on the final, uh, uh, acreage number or bushel number on margin protection. My margin protection check this year is gonna be very, very large. And I, and like Jared said, it has it, it's saving the bacon, okay? And you're setting your floor higher. This is, these, this is the most important slide there is in my opinion. Yeah. That's why I wanna stay on, I, I mean, I, I'm, Jared's got a lot of great information. I wanted to stay on it and get farmer perspective and then from Johnny and from Matt, because this right here I think is what sends it home. And Kelly said something that I, I really wanted to make sure that someone heard 75% of the time that he's collected on his crop insurance. It wasn't because he had no yield. Now, I'm sure the de ratio year would've been a different thing because the field got literally mowed off. But usually it's been because the mar the pri the price, it was the price, it was a revenue thing. So go ahead and speak to that. Any of the three farmers Dam, I'll give you a very easy example. Johnny, do you wanna role play a little bit here? Sure. Would you love to sell all of last year's corn crop for six bucks? That, that would've been great. Okay. Would you still love to sell it for five 50? Absolutely. Yeah. Probably even five and a quarter. I'm talking board price here. I'm just walking it down. Earlier on the webinar, I discussed the idea that insurance is a hedge insurance doesn't care what you have or haven't done on your own personal marketing plan. And this is running the risk of getting a little bit in the weeds. It's a better one-off conversation, but 95% coverage levels in volatile situations when they are active, it is a hundred percent financial hedge on the farm. What I mean by that is that the price drops to a point that insurance is in the money, it's recouping dollar for dollar loss on the way down. And that is before considering the personal marketing plan of a producer. Meaning call it better to be lucky than good, call it what have you, or just how volatile the markets have been. Plenty of producers have found themselves with higher level of coverages being short the grain market to the extent of 150% to 200% and might have only sold 30 or 40% of their crop production. It is a hedge and does not care about what you have or not have or haven't done on your own grain marketing claim. And it recoup dollar for dollar loss. Back to the question I asked Johnny, last year's crop insurance and margin protection in essence provided a producer a hedge from 5 75 December corn all the way down to our insurance price of $4 and 88 cents, 2024 margin protection is providing a hedge from in essence right where we are at today, all the way down to as low as the market goes. And if the market rallies, it's not active, it's simple as that. My grain is sold, I'm financially protected or I'm not. It is a light switch that is on and off, no in between, which in turn does create more unique marketing opportunities as the year goes on. But that is starting to get into a diluted group of producers that are willing to go to that extent. Is that a better way to explain it, Damien, from the Sure. And I want to, I wanna stick with the farm guys. I heard anything from Matt or Johnny as much as I want to. Do you use these products either of you two? And is there any farmer perspective you can deliver on this too, on this slide? Yeah, I've never used the endorsements here that he is mentioned. Uh, I've seen 'em in some pamphlets that were handed out, but I actually had a question. Uh, when you do this here, do you go into the county average? Is that what this is saying? Is that how this works? So, so if your county averages is lower than what you're normally making, it actually could go against you. Is that right? If your county average yield is lower than what you're making? No. So it is separate of your multi peril with the exception that if simple math, if margin protection is paying $200 an acre, but your yield suffered as well and you're getting a hundred dollars an acre from your own crop insurance policy, you're only gonna get the total of 200. Okay. A hundred of it's coming from your multi perel, a hundred of it's coming from margin protection. However, ECO and SEO are a little different, different timings don't pay it 120%, but they are irrelevant from what your own multi peril claim is. You could have $200 from multi peril, $400 from ECO, or you could have nothing on multi peril and still collect on ECO from a revenue standpoint because your multi peril was at 80% raised just enough not to have a revenue claim in a lower market. But the 95% policy had a higher trigger point and generated a revenue claim. John product, all of these products are, just to make sure everybody understands they are all county products. The USDA comes out with a forecast yield, a projected yield at the beginning of the year. Crawford County, Iowa, where I live for 2023 was forecast to have like a 225 bushel corn crop. They are in the process of reporting all those bushels right now. So like my margin protection policy, we don't know what the check will be yet for 23, but we're guessing it's gonna be about 180 8 or one 90. That's why we think the check will be so big for margin protection because of the drought here. But it, you know, so this year it was because of a bushel loss and, and price in, in 23, it was a bushel loss and price in 24. We obviously don't know what kind of crop we'll raise, but the prices dropped so far. It wouldn't shock me that we won't have a margin protection price in 24, but it has nothing to do with your yield, the projected county yield and what the county average comes in. So if your yield is great and the county's bad, it does not work against you. Gotcha. I wanna show A-E-C-O-S-C-O situation. 2024. I picked a random county. I pulled Iroquois County out of Illinois, by The way. I I I I've been to Iroquois County. I wanna ask something because I'm, I think there might be a couple of viewers that are with this on the endorsements. That's a second. In other words, I'm buying that in addition to my normal crop insurance, correct, Jared? Yes. And am I buying just one of those three? Am I pur, am I having to opt between S-C-O-E-C-O or margin or do I get a couple of those three Naming? It is an all a carte option and to be brutally honest, why I decided to go ahead and start our own crop insurance agency. I've been involved in crop insurance with marketing since 2008. I was honestly tired of dealing with insurance agents that didn't know better, didn't know what tools farms had access, access to. There is a smorgasbord of different products available in the space, whether it be privately owned or from the RMA, the risk management agency. Mm-Hmm. What I would tell you, Damien, is if this sparks interest to one of your listeners, you have to just sit down and have the conversation with your agent about your situation, identify what type of costs you're gonna have for your whole farm because at the end of the day, you're trying to guarantee as much revenue as you possibly can, rather than just what's the cheapest policy I can get my hands on for the most amount of dollars. Got it. The easiest way to go about it. Got it. And now you're getting ready to show us different scenarios using the normal crop insurance plus not using an, uh, an endorsement or using At the end of the day, Damien, there's this example is connecting ECO and SEO together with an 80% multi peril policy. There's a lot of numbers here, but don't lose track of it is just math. It is three algebra equations that at the end of the day are all intertwined and they are a bucket of possible revenue aside from your revenue on your physical marketing of your crop. Got it. Go ahead and give, you wanna go ahead, take us to The, the and example on the top right, you can see the expected county yield issued for this county by the RMA is 1 97 0.7 for 2024. I'm making an assumption. I'm saying, Hey, 200 bushel corn for the county yield next year. Just below that, I have 195 bushel a PH on my farm and I elected an 80% policy to protect it. And now I'm assuming I'm going to yield 201 bushel an acre. And then the last piece, we're assuming a $4 and 80 cent insurance price with a projection. Again, not a, not a a firm like the market's going here, but just an example, if corn goes to $4, how do all these work out with those yields? And a price move like that? You can see that ECO is paying $84 an acre. SCO is paying $15 an acre and my revenue protection on the bottom left RP gross indemnity, I'm not getting anything from my own federal crop policy. That was that example that I was referring to earlier. I grow just a few bushels better than my a PH. The market drops 80 cents a bushel and I've got nothing to show for my revenue protection policy that everybody buys. So I wanna look at that exact same situation. Bill, we are froze here. There we go, there we go. 80% multi perel policy. Same thing in soybeans. I went way out in the eastern seaboard, pulled up Yakkin County in North Carolina. The county expected yield is 45.6. I'm assuming the yield is 46.5 that harvest a little bit better. I have a 46 bushel a PH I'm assuming that I yield 48 and the market goes from $12 insurance price down to 10 75, a dollar 25 price drop. I'm not getting anything from revenue protection. I'm not getting anything from SCO, but I am triggering a $20 an acre payment from ECO. No doubt in that situation, you might not be getting much money back above your premium. It's different in every state, every county, every operation. But the fact of the matter is, that is an example of a shallow loss. And if you're considering $20 an acre payment, 48 bushel beans, that's about call it 2020 5 cents a bushel, or excuse me, closer to 45, 50 cents a bushel of coverage that it has been in the money, my insurance is in the money, it is giving me a financial return for the loss that has been created based on revenue, but it started at 95% rather than the risk of having nothing until the market goes much, much, much lower. So a real quick slide, just two popular private products that no doubt, these are probably more prevalent from Kansas up to North Dakota east over to the Ohio River Valley, uh, and anywhere in between higher risk, uh, counties probably don't have access to some of these two personal favorites. Uh, granted, there's a ton of other great products out there with other AIPs approved insurance providers, insurance companies, uh, we like to use the RPP product. It's basically a 95% buyout, but it's insuring your farm. I'm taking my insurance price of say, $5 and I'm increasing my spring price by 12%. So I'm taking my spring price from $5 to five 60, which in theory, if the market drops, my revenue claim kicks in earlier. A very similar concept on ramp. This is another private product. Do not be surprised when you see the price tag. It's a, just generally speaking, you're gonna pay a third for the premium or the additional revenue that you're gonna be guaranteed. It's a band of coverage to be able to go add that top 75 to 85% policy, or 85 to 95% policy. A again, I'm not trying to suggest that hey, RCIS and FMH by any type, uh, by any imagination, there are numerous AIPs that have all kinds of great products. What that comes down to is your agent has to understand those. That's not a pitch for us. That is a pitch for the, the welfare of the farmer of understanding what you actually have access to. I wanna, Hey, wait, wait. Hey you, I know you're moving pretty quickly here and I wanna make sure we're getting enough, uh, comprehension from the viewer base. Not to mention some people are not on live to even ask the questions. They're gonna be watching this replay. So back to your previous slide, you threw out a couple of more, Jared, a couple more, uh, insurance packages. At the risk of sounding, uh, like the non farmer on the table, is there, is there a danger of being over-insured? Uh, I mean if I, it sounds like I can buy a lot of, I can buy a lot of insurance, but at some point, does that insurance, am I just spending a whole hell of a lot of money on premiums and, um, and not getting it back? I mean, is there a risk here that I, I overdo my spend? Here's how I oftentimes answer that, Damien. There's only one tool and it happens to be on a Chicago Mercantile Exchange that a producer can go purchase to provide themselves downside price risk, downside price protection and leave their upside wide open. And that is a put option. Yep. Many individuals don't have the stomach or desire to be active in a hedge account. However, the overwhelming majority of these products are going to be cheaper than the per bushel expense. That a put option costs. And in addition, a hedging mechanism such as a put option is price and price only and has nothing to do with yield. You might have a little bit more control over your direction on an option. You might want to have more control around what that option does as the market moves. But let's be honest, at that point, you're doing nothing more than trading and speculating. If you're not keeping it as a hedge. You purchase an insurance product at a discounted rate to the Board of Trade because it's subsidized by the government. You're purchasing a hedge for a cheaper rate than what you can go fabricate on your own. And also this gives you, to your point, it is, uh, the, the board of trade would be only bushels you can actually produce or deliver. Whereas this is whatever this gives you, you've got protection against the bushel loss as well as the price erosion. Correct. A popular conversation is taking place right now in the past several years, it wouldn't have ever came up around insurance elections, but everybody's fielding calls from their local FSA offices to elect their farm program for years. Again, it's been irrelevant because the prices of the commodities have been so far above right, that support prices provided by these quote unquote free products from the FSA I'm of the opinion. I won't spend a lot of, spend a lot of time on this slide that especially just pertinent to corn and soybeans, sorry to pick on, uh, individuals involved in the crowd here that are growing on other crops. But corn and soybeans finally seem to be a no-brainer. They finally seem to be a no-brainer to flock towards Art County. And I'll give a real quick, uh, uh, rewind a calendar nine years ago in 2014, that was your last year of electing your farm program election for the next five. And everybody for the most part was going towards Art County because it was guaranteeing a payment for at least the next two years, if not three years. And it kind of depended on area by area. But our county paid two out of the first three years for most PLC kicked in the last couple. Fast forward to 2019, farm Bill changed. Allow us to start electing these policies, or excuse me, these programs annually. Keep in mind the prices that the, that that NASA and the FSA are measuring, this is for the 2024 crop. They won't even start measuring those prices until September one in the USDA marketing year from September one to the end of August to 2025. However, here's the takeaway. If the national average cash price is significantly lower than 4 85, which national average cash price means the average price paid to the farmer over that 12 months? If the price is significantly below 4 85, there's a realistic chance that Art County is going to be paying for the 2024 crop. I do not think, unless you are super, super bearish, the corn and soybean market, I do not think you need to be enrolled in PLC last stipulation. You cannot carry SEO and Art County at the same time. The only way you can carry this supplemental coverage option, not ECO, but just SCO, is if you're enrolled in PLC. I just wanted to briefly touch on that and show a real quick example. Pull up Cass County, Nebraska outside of Lincoln, Nebraska, the five year Olympic average yield 2 0 7 0.9 Olympic average price 4 85, take those two times each other, that's $1,008 an acre. The max payment you can receive from our county is 10% of the benchmark revenue or a hundred dollars an acre. In this example, 86% of 1,008 equals the $867 number. And I just put an example together down below. What happens at the county yield is 2 0 7 0.9, like the five year average. The national average price is three 80. The county revenue's now down to 790. We were guaranteed 867, it's paying $77 an acre. But also knowing that the price couldn't have gone all that much more lower before we maxed out the payment. That's a conversation you have to review all your EZ one 50 sixes from the FSA office. I promise you it is a grueling task. We do it. The, the PDFs overload our email. It is a nightmare, but it's an important decision to be considering in conjunction with your crop insurance. And why I want to mention that in the event a producer has some marketing done already has margin protection in place, or possibly Alexa, higher level of coverage here in the next 45 days, and the market drops 2020 5%, which is kind of sickening to think about. If we're below $4 corn, the producer would actually probably find themself four sub $4. Corn is worth more than selling your crop at $5 corn. Think about that for a second. $4 corn, total revenue is worth more than the revenue you will generate at $5 corn. So the safety, by the way, That by the way, that's, that's only, that's only if I select certain coverage though. Correct? That's the possibilities that you have at your fingertips. Absolutely. If you wanna risk the market going to $4 corn and not have a, a diversified approach towards that downside price risk and downside revenue risk. Got It. It's a, a very dangerous situation lurking in agriculture Right now. I wanna hear from the farmers again because I wanna make sure that we're covering stuff from the farmer perspective. So what I heard there is the arc. This is the, that's, that's something that I don't even have to pay for. That's what I go to my, I got contacted myself about, about this for my farm. So that's something I had to pay for. So I combine that with, uh, a traditional crop insurance, 70 to 85% coverage. And then I combine it with one of those RMA endorsements. So I'm talking about three different types of coverage and we haven't even talked about marketing yet. Am I following, am I following along in a, uh, steadfast manner? If a producer would find themselves with minimal marketing done and a, for lack of better words, a so so insurance product if Art County would trigger a payment, it's nothing more than lipstick on a pig. If if say that again. If if they did, if I didn't have marketing Done, art County would trigger a payment and there's no insurance revenue and not much marketing done, that means the corn market has dropped substantially. Yep. And we have a whole lot bigger problems on our hands than we do today. Got it. Farmer perspective, Johnny matter. Kelly, hop in. Help me, help me make sure I'm taking this numbers home. I wanna make sure that we're, that this all makes sense At the end of the day when margins are tight because the board of trade is low, your crop insurance, your county election, the supplemental products all add to our bottom line because it protects us and raises the floor. And I really don't care where the money comes from as long as the money comes. I agree with that. Do you, is it too early? Is it too early to have, um, is it too early to have us talk about Kelly, uh, your examples or Matt's or Johnny's where these, is it too early to then say like what you did last year on the using more than just crop insurance? Well, I'll tell you last year when you add in everything that Jared did, my average price of corn for every bush I raised is north of $8. Okay? Don't, don't dig into that too deep. All right. I'm gonna give Kelly a hard time here. That's because revenue goes up, the lower the market goes, that's point based upon insurance and sales. Okay? The old fashioned double dip. Got it. Johnny, you got anything? Matt? You got anything? He's the quietest I've ever heard Matt on a webinar in the history of Matt being on webinars. Alright, So it's my turn. It's been your attorney. You've been just sitting back on your hands. Jared takes more time than Temple does. I've never seen anybody do that in my life on a webinar. We got like nine minutes or eight minutes left to get their hour. No, I do wanna say this. So, so Jared is like 14 levels above my head. Kelly and I talked today for about 20 minutes on this. And even though all the insurance is the same and Jared's gonna blow holes in all this, remember I'm from the south, so Kelly thinks I don't do anything right? So take that in consideration before we start. I'll be honest with you, Kelly. No, in all seriousness, um, so I did some numbers today on, and, and I'm just talking about, um, not, not the revenue coverage, but the yield coverage today. So if I got an 85%, um, yield coverage, it would cost me about $30 an acre. So if $5 corn that, that's gonna be another six bushels. We are irrigated. So our county averages don't move much at all. So I'm looking at 164 bushel on acre corn to be able to take advantage of, of that specific policy. Now when you're talking about revenue, that's a totally different thing. So I'm not, I'm not gonna say I will not make 164 bushel. I'm gonna say in my farming career with corn, I've never been below to where I could protect that. Now what we've looked at in the past is when corn prices are real high, then there's some revenue protection that helps us out, right? I'm example of what Jared's saying, stacks, two years ago, cotton was a dollar a pound. You know, we went in there and bought that Stacks insurance, which was very foreign to us, but we made a lot of money on that Stax protection. Plus we protected our marketing by marketing the cotton at, you know, at higher prices. Uh, so that was, and I looked at it just like Jared said, I looked at it as a put, so I looked at the price of puts or options, I should say. I looked at the price of stacks, it was a no brainer. Take the stacks out, hope the county don't make what it's supposed to at that dollar, you know, at that dollar revenue protection. So we made money on that. So there's certain areas where I've, I've done that and then certain areas where it didn't seem like it would, it would work for me as well. I've got a hedge on my corn today on half of my expected production for 24. That's about $115 an acre. That's where I'm at today. If it keeps going down, I'm gonna make a little bit more. The problem with what I'm doing, based on what Jared's saying is I've got my ceiling set, you know, where if you take the, if you take the insurance out, there's no ceiling. I've got a ceiling set. So if corn goes to a certain dollar amount, I'm capped out right there. So I can, I a hundred percent see what, what Jared's saying. We, we, you know, we talk about allocating resources a lot or allocating our, our budgets. I've took a portion of that money that I would spend on insurance and turned around and used that in additional types of insurance, which is wind and hell on my corn and my cotton simply because one out every five years we're gonna get hammered on cotton or we're gonna get our corn blowed down because of a hurricane. So I some of what Jared and, and Kelly does, I guess I'm doing some of that, but in some ways I'm doing some different stuff. Probably I'm probably not doing it right. But that's my scenario in my insurance deal. And again, insurance is one of the most, farmers are more ignorant in insurance, I would say, and then marketing second than anything we do. We can talk about, like you said earlier, tractors, disk, you know, fers fertilizer. But when you get into marketing and you get into insurance, if, if a farmer don't understand that well, and I'm guilty as anyone, you just back up and say, I don't know. Yeah. So by the way, I, I got the sense, I got the sense of that. I mean, I don't actively farm. I'm, I'm familiar, but, uh, this is, I didn't realize you could do so many of these. Jared, Matt's, Matt's a a hail and uh, wind guy and he is, uh, he does a few of these things, but he's not, is the, is tell me, gimme kind of go through what your recommendations are. Should, should a person start considering those endorsements? Is that where is that where the, the, if they already insured, because I think what 93% of all the crop acres in the US are insured. So most of our listeners certainly are insured. Is the next thing they should do in taking on those endorsements like Johnny is considering or what should we look at? Dam you're not gonna like the answer to this, but I'll say it anyways. There is no one size fits all. Yep. There might be some larger programs that have more attractiveness just by explaining to a group of producers saying if the market drops, you are covered and it kicks in at 95% and by the way, it's gonna cost you this. There is a segment of producers that like, sign me up. I like that my upside stays wide open. I can do that, then there are others that just can't stomach to spend the money. Yeah. And that's fine. If you don't want to do that, then the next step is what can you do to replicate that in a marketing plan? That's very, very difficult, by the way. And if I'm not willing to spend, I, I'm maybe going to bolt onto what Matt was talking about. A lot of producers, if I'm not willing to go the extra mile in marketing or insurance, I'm not gonna be doing the other either. And that's where the real danger kicks in. The recommendation here, Damien, is you have to be educated first. Yep. Find somebody. If you don't understand these, to understand them inside and out, it's a critical piece of the business. And the percent expense of an overall farm. If I'm spending, let's just say Crawford County, Iowa, $70 an acre on a cost overall of $1,200 an acre. But in that 70, I'm only spending another 40 out of 1200. What percent of that of my overall cost is that we slip and argue over pennies and nickels in the market. Yep. That add up to more dollars than this. Mm-Hmm. And again, it is a safety net that is imperative because, like I started at the beginning, we need to find whatever resources we have available to keep the wealth and agriculture that has been created in the last two or three years. You want number one goal for 2024. All Right. Take it, take it it to your, take it to your concluding slides if you would. And then, uh, we gotta go through. There we go. All right. Just two things I just wanna ask. Have people ask themselves this, if corn happens to be sub $4, I won't mention a certain seed company's name, but they do think we're going to a three and three, a $3 handle in corn and a 3 billion bushel carryout. Honestly, I can't argue with them all that much. What does your farm look like at corn would be sub $4 and soybeans would be sub $11. Again, I'm talking Sha Chicago Board of Trade prices. What costs can you legitimately see move substantially lower between now and spring planting in 2025? It's a tough hill to climb. How does 7% interest or higher play a role in all that? Here's my takeaway, Damon. Guaranteed bushels are so critical and you have to understand what you can do with those. And you have to try to overcome the emotions. We had clients ourselves this last summer. The emotions took over and wasn't able to keep them on the path that tried to define is what it is. Can you identify your worst case revenue versus your cost? That's the only two things I care about. I'm spending this much money. I don't care where the money's coming from. Can you identify what that gap is? Can your farm, can you stress test that? Can you take it to the banker? Can you take it to the accountant and tell me what happens to my farm if this happens? Not a fun conversation. And then most importantly, just exhaust all your resources, whether that be people, insurance agencies, insurance companies. Find everything that is available to you because I promise you, you're exhausting every nook and cranny that you can possibly go through to grow as big of a crop as you can. Why not? Why not go through the same process there to guarantee as many dollars as you possibly can or just go to the casino? All right, we're gonna take questions. Remember, if you've got a question, type it in. We'd love to hear from you. This is a, this is a a, a tough topic, but as, as Kelly said and, and Matt reiterated and sort of generally it's the very important topic we're talking about your farm finances here and keeping yourself solvent. Um, is Jared a JC marketing consulting or Jared lead Ag insurance? And um, Johnny, you, you sat quietly. What's your thoughts now? Are you gonna increase your insurances? Yeah, I'll probably look at some more of these different programs that they have offered and maybe sit down and work a matrix system to see which program will work best. 'cause you know, the corn was pretty enticing when you looked at the numbers he put in, but the beans wasn't so much so, but they all got their place. And one of the biggest takeaways, you know, I think people need to really understand is if you don't wanna make margin calls insurance, you know what your cost is gonna be when you buy the program. When you buy the product, you don't have to worry about adding to it. So I think that's a big takeaway for me is if I'm worried about what the price is gonna be going into this 2024 crop and I don't have to worry about keeping, making more and more margin costs if the price keeps going down, you know, this is a great product there for that. Matt, you got anything? You know, one thing I wanted to say, I just wanted to wait till the right time. Is Kelly kind of talked or alluded to, you know, Jared kind of being his CFO and I think that's one of the most important things a farmer can look at, uh, to stay in business is have someone in charge of your, your CFO responsibilities, whether that's someone internal or someone external. A lot of times the external person like Jared, he's looking at it from an outside view. You know, my wife is, I would say is my CFO, but Jared's looking at it above my wife. So he's looking at that saying, this is wrong, this is wrong. That's wrong. You need this insurance, you need, you know, you need this, you need to work this out. And I think that's very important to have a person such as Jared that Kelly has to, to have that second opinion, that outside view of, of your financial position. 'cause we get so emotional with our crop or with our business that sometimes, we'll, you know, we'll we won't take that second look where A CFO like Jared would be is. I think that's extremely important. It's numbers, it's numbers. Granted it's a client relationship, but the point is, it's, it's more looking at the numbers and it's a, it's irrational, untainted by emotion perspective generally that you're talking about Matt, He, yeah. And he don't care if he p****s off Kelly or or sweet pea, you know, he's gonna tell 'em what the numbers are and they can do with it what they want to. Speaking of Kelly and sweet pea, I wanna hear from Kelly, but the, the thing here, and by the way, you can go ahead and get outta this and go back to a normal screen if you would please, uh, kick it back, Jared, to making, uh, will the host please. The, the thing that I think we got here is, and we didn't even talk about the marketing and maybe that's a subject for another day, but the point is, I think I'm hearing loud and clear. You can try and you can go and buy puts and you can, you can, uh, try and pretend that you're, uh, the best grain trader, you know, going, but you're a farmer and you're probably not a great grain trader. So why don't you then do what you can do? That doesn't mean that you're a grain trader and you can insure yourself. So I think that was the message I got loud and clear. I'm still a little conflicted though that I think there's so many insurances. I would be worried, and I wonder if this is a question for Jared and, and also Kelly, Hey, we're heading into down downturn revenue and commodity price problems. I can't afford as much insurance in this year. You're probably gonna say this is the year you need it more than ever. But I wanna, how do you address that? And Kelly's nodding his head, so let's go there. Well, I think everything has to have, everything has to come with a budget. But in a year like this year, you need to protect, you need to protect what you've got. And and again, like Jared said, the when like my farm to put in corn this year is gonna be $1,200 and you're talking less than 10% of the budget's gonna go to insurance to protect the price I've got. Uh, you gotta find a way to, uh, you gotta find a way to afford that insurance. It, it's part of your marketing program. I can tell you this, I didn't get $8 a bushel average for my corn. So that tells you what they're doing over there. Well, how are you dressing it with the clients, Jared, the the person that says, Hey man, I know it's, we're month out and I gotta start making determinations, but we're gonna be so skinny that I, I don't know that it's, that it's dollar that it's dollar wise for me to go ahead and, and expand insurances beyond the base, beyond the base level. And I know you're gonna say every situation's differently, but you've, you've probably already heard that statement from your client base. Yeah. Full transparency dam, we are big users of margin protection. A lot of these decisions were made Labor Day five, six months ago. Awesome. So that's not a right or wrong on based upon what the market has done. But we were looking at procuring inputs. You're making land deals. Your cost of production variation from August 1st, 2023 to the second we start putting seed in the ground is not gonna change all that much if we're on top of the numbers as we go. And it's a year by year case by case. But those decisions weren't hard. It was looking at what markets have done and looking at costs not changing and what the risk on the horizon could be. That does not mean that we just didn't spend too much money on insurance per se, because corn goes back to six bucks. So be it. Somebody wants to get mad at me about that and we sell a good crop at $6, they can see themselves out of my office. Well, and and we've heard that before. I wanna hear from Kelly. I we hear that and I even hear that. Well, you know what, I over-insured on my crops for three years and I never collect anything. I just think it's stupid. Well, I have a life insurance policy also. Uh, you know, and I'd really like to not have to use the damn thing Mrs. Mason think, Well, you're not gonna collect on that Laureate. Well, half the times I think that Mrs. Mason, I think her, her, what she would like is she doesn't mind living with me. It's a 30 year term. I think she would like me to get to about the 29 and a half year mark and then my plane goes down so then she could get like American Airlines and my life insurance policy and she got the 29 and a half years of living with me. I think that's what she's kind of Ga I have an answer for you on a year, like this year when it's lean, I started working with Jared AFT in April of 2020 when we've already already made the election. And uh, that year I only took 70% insurance because I didn't think there was any chance at a claim. And I would tell you there's value in having a marketing consultant that's not afraid to tell you you're wrong. Jared is a little like sweet pea where he's mean enough to tell me I'm wrong and make me pay attention. So there's value in that. And he's, when we started working together, he said, well you screwed that up. You should have taken 85% insurance. This is before margin protection. And I'm like, I just didn't think there's a chance for the claim. And he showed me how when you tie that into the marketing and the hedging I could do and things like that and worked it throughout the year, it was very educational. Cost me about 800 grand on my operation by not taking it. So I didn't take the extra 15% Damien. 'cause I was trying to save about the 16 or 17,000 and it saved me 800 grand in 2020. Cost You cost you, it cost you a $17,000 save you dropped, you did the usual, you dropped dollars to pick up dimes worse Than Yes. Yes. And uh, 2020 was a year like this one where it was pretty lean. You know, the, uh, if it wouldn't have been for the derecho, I don't know, we would've had the big rally in the market that we had. Right? But it, uh, it was pretty lean a lot like this year looks like. And, uh, saving those pennies on the insurance costs a lot of dollars. Got an important question over here from Gordon Briggs. Gordon asked, do these different insurance options that you're talking about, Jared had to be purchased from the same insurance agency. And I, I kind of wondered this also, you've outlined stuff because he says, or can we work with more than one insurance agency? That's Gordon's question. And I I think he's his point is he thinks that the agency he's been utilizing doesn't understand some of these more exotic options. And he says, I may want to seek help elsewhere for better understanding. So can you address Gordon please? Sure. For starters, to make sure everybody understands regular multi peril crop insurance is the same price anywhere you buy it regardless of agent agency and company for your farm. When you get into the RMA based products such as E-C-O-S-C-O, margin Protection, same price anywhere you buy it and you can buy it from 13 different insurance companies. You can buy it from God knows how many different agencies and agents there are across the us. Same product no matter who you buy it from for your farm, when you get into the private products, I would say off the top of my head, 10 out of the 13 private insurance companies, the approved insurance providers have their own private products. Those are going to differ in costs. When you talk about doing business with a different agency, each agency contracts with what's called an a IP, an approved insurance provider. Each agency has a contract with them and then they have access to the tools that that insurance company provides. And our agency we're contracted with five different AIPs that is somewhat by choice somewhat because of knowing what products those companies provide versus what others do or don't. So naturally go in a direction to find a company that can service the needs that we're gonna have for our clientele every year. That's, by the way, that's very, very well delivered. So the ones that are not all standard price would be maybe like the ones that are margin protection. Is that the ones that, that can have No margin protection? E-C-O-S-E-O and MultiPro Crop Insurance, same Price Anywhere. Okay. Those are all government, government regulated. Okay. So the thing that Gordon would need to do is first off, he can keep what he has and then he can find someone else that's more well versed. He can call you, can he call you and say, all right, would you put me into one of these? Or he can anywhere, right? Yeah. You, you a farmer ultimately contracts with an agent. An agent as part of an agency. The agency contracts with the insurance company and the insurance company contracts with the RMA, meaning you do your business with an agent, you cannot buy one of these products. Yeah, technically you can, but it is a pain in the butt to do one product with one agent and you're peril with another agent and the farm, the point is not gonna like it either because you're gonna find yourself going through two yield reporting, two claims. Okay. So to answer your Gordon's question then, is right now, if he's already locked in with his multi peril and he wanted to try and dabbling with some experimental things that are a little bit more exotic than what his current agent comprehends, he might be needing to change agencies. Any spring crops? Nobody's locked in at this point in time. All right. We all, Kelly, just nod his head. I Think Storm have that option until March 15th. Sorry, Gordon, uh, might be a hard conversation, but, uh, we, we all have those conversations with people like, Hey, I think the market passed you by and you're not my best fit anymore for my business. Johnny, you've been sitting over there quietly and you always have, you're one of those guys that always has something smart to say, but you don't, you're not as forceful like Matt, by the way, did you know, he said you just talked more than Temple Roads. God, you talked for a long time. I've never anybody talk more than Temple on a webinar until Jerry got on here. Johnny, what you, I don't get to talk at home. So I have to make it up when I'm around my wife, she's always doing the talking. I Mean, I love, I love having groups like this. 'cause you can get all these different ideas what people are doing that are on their farm, that that might be a play for me. And I mean, I guess this year, you know, it looks like one of the few things that the price is gonna be down on is our insurance policies. The premiums are gonna be down it looks like, which is usually not a good sign, right? So there's a silver lining to it that the insurance policies could be cheaper this year. But at the end of the day, when you start having to worry about what Arc, arc or PLC payments you've signed up for or potentially gonna get, that's usually not a good sign too. So I think what Jared said earlier, anytime we can package all these things together and try not to leave any money on the table than we already have, that's a good day for us. So I just think keeping our eye, you know, our minds open and our eyes open and be listening to what everybody else is doing is gonna be a big deal going into this crop year. Got it. Thank you. Matt, your takeaway, besides that, Jared talks more than Temple, what do you got for a takeaway? Well, I mean, you've gotta look at this. You know, you asked a question earlier to Jared, you've gotta look at this just like we do a fo year application or a fertilizer application. It's what your ROI. So if you feel, you know, Jared talks to you or whoever your insurance agent is, and you figure out that's an ROI, it's no different than putting out fertilizer or a foliar or anything else. If it makes you money, it makes sense, you know, and, and like Jared said, it's simple math. So when you do the math, all of us got a calculator. We don't, we can go to AI and they'll, they'll take care of it. But, uh, if it, if it's an ROI or, or risk protection, I'm big on risk protection. You know, we, you know, you hear this term all the time, you're not gonna go broke if you make a profit. That is one of the most well used terms in, in agriculture during marketing or whatever. And so if you can, if you can protect yourself from going broke in years like this, that's what we gotta do. I think it's a great takeaway. We're gonna, uh, bring it to Jared and Kelly for the wrap up because I think you've got a, a couple of closing thoughts on that from both of you to bring this point home. Uh, I wanna remind you also a dear listener, viewer and extreme Ag fan that we're gonna be at Commodity Classic. We meaning extreme Ag. We're gonna be, uh, in several different booths. Uh, we're gonna be at, uh, spray Tech, we're gonna be at Superior Grain, we're gonna be at Tru Tera. The guys are gonna be running around different booths all week long. If you are going to Commodity Classic, please look us up, especially on February 29th, uh, Thursday morning at 7:00 AM If I gotta wake my ass up at five o'clock in the morning, I want a good audience. And we're gonna make it worth you being there. All right? 7:00 AM is gonna kick off. We're gonna be in there, we're gonna be talking about sustainability and what it really means. We're pulling off the BS meter and saying, you know what, let's talk about what this really means and how you can make money on it. Programs, uh, Johnny Kelly, Matt programs that pay you to do things you maybe you're already doing, cover crops, reduced tillage, those kinds of things in a year where you're looking at reduced revenue, why not maximize revenue streams away from just the crop or the insurance? And talk about some of these programs we can get you into. It's all about sustainability, it's about soil health and it's about making you money. Thursday morning, February 29th at 7:00 AM in the Learning Center upstairs at Commodity Classic. I'll be there. These guys are gonna be there. I want you to be there. I also, we're doing this again. The next webinar is March 7th. March 7th, Thursday, March 7th at 20, uh, uh, at 6:00 PM Central, 7:00 PM Eastern. We're talking about do you have a population problem? Everyone on this call and the other guys that aren't on here, temple and Heaven, et cetera, have Dawn Chad, have done population experiments and have a lot of information shared. You're probably planting more seed than you need. You're probably in the seed. Your seed dealer sure as heck isn't gonna tell you that. And we're gonna dig into that on March 7th. Before your planters run, we're gonna dig into what population maybe you should be planting. Kelly and, uh, Jared, get me outta here on this topic about marketing and crop insurance strategies for 2020 More to, to keep your farm solvent and elevate your farm financials. Find yourself a knowledgeable crop insurance agent. Find yourself a marketing consultant that fits your style. If you're aggressive or conservative, someone that you have a relationship with, and come up with a plan and, and listened to 'em and stick with it. Jared, you, uh, you spent, you spent, you went through a lot of stuff. Uh, you might've even overwhelmed us a little bit. So your key takeaways, I think are worth repeating the three that you had there at the end. And it's, it's all good ones. Well, I'm gonna kind of agree with Kelly. Don't, uh, forget that if you're spending money on crop insurance, you're spending money to sell grain, uh, you expect the utmost value out of your equipment dealer, your seed products, your fertilizer, your chemical, expect the same out of everything else. Do you have a crop? Crop insurance is a, is a, is a, is a crop. You, you view crop insurance as crop input? Yes. It's, it's nothing different. It's the only one that guarantees you money back. I Think we're gonna leave it right there. His name is Jared Creed. JC Marketing Consulting is what the company used to be now is jc, what is it? Elite Insurance, JC Ag Financial and Elite Ag Insurance. Got it. And if you need to find him, you can find him through us or through Kelly. Uh, told you March 7th, we're doing this all again. And it's about population. It's gonna be great. It'll get you geared up for planting. It's gonna give you some new things to think about. 'cause again, you're probably planting, you're probably buying more seed than you actually need to wanna talk about saving money in a year. That's got some, uh, financial struggles. Maybe you just go ahead and cut back on seed and you probably won't sacrifice any yield. In fact, you might find out like Kelly did, less seed equals more yield. Ah, that's why you gotta join us again next month. See what Commodity Classic. Thanks for being there for Matt, Johnny, Jared, Kelly, and our friend Will Damien Mason. Extreme Ag.