Ep. 18 Seeking Participants for a Rice Crop Insurance Participation Study!

00;00;08;09 – 00;00;11;11
Riley Smith
Yeah. But anyway. You ready?

00;00;11;13 – 00;00;13;00
Dr. Ryan Loy
I’m ready. Man is ready.

00;00;13;02 – 00;00;36;23
Riley Smith
All right. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to another episode of Morning Coffee and AG Markets with your host, Riley Smith. This morning, we’ve got a, long awaited, friend of ours. It he’s been in here a couple times giving us some podcasts and newsletters. But he’s been, what would be the word? Hiatus. Because you’ve been on what?

00;00;36;23 – 00;00;41;18
Riley Smith
You’ve been quite the world traveler lately. We got Doctor Ryan Loy in here, by the way. I didn’t give up his name, but.

00;00;41;22 – 00;00;56;05
Dr. Ryan Loy
No, I have. It’s been, you know, it’s all been very good. And I feel very blessed to be able to be involved in those travels and a lot and a lot of that work. And, it’s all work related, but, you know, it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of time to, to do that.

00;00;56;05 – 00;01;12;10
Dr. Ryan Loy
And so we went to, to Sicily for a week and, came back, we’re working with some wheat producers over there, and, I’m working with them on some, some of their other projects that they have going. And so, it was a good it was a good visit, a good group. I mean, it’s, it’s gorgeous over there.

00;01;12;14 – 00;01;35;10
Dr. Ryan Loy
It’s, it’s it’s really tough to kind of describe how pretty it really is and, how unique the landscape and first and foremost, how unique the agriculture is. It’s a it really opens your eyes a lot. I mean, these guys, the farmers over there, they’re they’re plowing and they’re planting on sides of a mountain, you know, some of them are terracing that.

00;01;35;10 – 00;01;58;03
Dr. Ryan Loy
Some of them aren’t. Some of them are literally going up that that slope with their chisel plow. And it’s amazing to see. And so, you know, their production practices were extremely interesting. And how they do it, you know, they they do they do some degree of, you know, integrated pest management. But it’s a lot different than how we conduct our business here, and that’s for many reasons.

00;01;58;03 – 00;02;15;17
Dr. Ryan Loy
But it was very interesting to see how they do it. You know, what kind of cover crops they use, how they utilize those cover crops and how do they, you know, what they plant and those sorts of things. And being able to see, like a, an olive, farm and, and, and an olive oil production facility was very interesting.

00;02;15;17 – 00;02;23;29
Dr. Ryan Loy
So all good. But yeah, I have been gone and, it’s, I am so thankful to be back. At the same time, I’ve never been more excited to be in an office before.

00;02;24;00 – 00;02;37;11
Riley Smith
Yeah, I’ve, I’ve never been across the pond, but, I’ll, I’ll take your word for it. All the pictures and stuff I’ve seen out of the books is all I got to go on, but that would be pretty interesting to see. I guess what would be deemed for us? Nontraditional.

00;02;37;16 – 00;02;56;27
Dr. Ryan Loy
Oh, yeah. And you know, it absolutely is nontraditional. And it’s it’s something that, you know, and the fascinating part about it is they haven’t apart from mechanization and things like that, they really haven’t changed much of how they grew thousands of years ago. That’s just kind of what they do. But again, coming back, that’s that’s neither.

00;02;57;04 – 00;02;58;21
Riley Smith
Why fix what what ain’t broke.

00;02;58;22 – 00;03;14;08
Dr. Ryan Loy
That’s right. And they have a much different market than we do. You know, they don’t have a huge export market for that sort of thing. Most of their production stays local. Right. You know where it’s a big difference for us, right? Most of our production leaves. So it was interesting to see. But yeah, glad to be back and glad to be back on the podcast.

00;03;14;10 – 00;03;28;22
Riley Smith
And, we’re glad to have you back. But we got you in here today. You’re going to give us a, I guess, what would be what, a recap or a briefing on on the Rice crop insurance participation study that that you and Doctor Biram are doing.

00;03;28;22 – 00;03;48;02
Dr. Ryan Loy
Yeah. So today I just wanted to take the time. This is going to be kind of a little bit different than our regular scheduled programing. Rather than, you know, talk about a topic or discuss, you know, you know, finances or discuss anything like that which, as an aside, the Federal Reserve Federal Open Market Committee is also meeting, this afternoon.

00;03;48;04 – 00;04;01;25
Dr. Ryan Loy
And at the time of this recording, I don’t believe the minutes have been released yet with expectations to cut interest rates again. But that’s a as an aside, it looks like they’re cutting the federal funds rate again by 0.25 percentage points, which will bring that down a little bit more.

00;04;01;25 – 00;04;16;01
Riley Smith
And I know I don’t want to get on a political rant or on a, I guess, a political subject. But I did hear after, the election, the stock market jumped like 1600 points.

00;04;16;01 – 00;04;35;18
Dr. Ryan Loy
Yeah. And it’s actually it’s very I’m actually glad you brought that up, because one of the things that’s important to understand, and I know you do too, but for listeners is that our stock market is is is not our economy. Right. And so the stock market is part of it, but it’s not it’s a reflection of expectations for the future.

00;04;35;19 – 00;04;56;03
Dr. Ryan Loy
And so, the stock market may raise from expectations that they may have better profit margins, they may have better sales, they may have a lower cost of production in the future. However, you know, it’s a little bit different than the economy, meaning what the fed will do because the fed is apolitical. And so the fed can, you know, everybody can send letters to the fed.

00;04;56;03 – 00;05;15;27
Dr. Ryan Loy
Everybody can, you know, say whatever they want. But that the fed is maintains that a political ness in the way of we make our decisions based on data that’s coming in about labor prices and those sorts of things, which is a little bit different than the stock market. Now, often the stock market can be used as a good proxy of the health.

00;05;16;02 – 00;05;19;10
Riley Smith
I think it’s more or less used for comfort.

00;05;19;12 – 00;05;29;07
Dr. Ryan Loy
It is. And like I said, it’s more so, you know, people getting better returns on their stocks or, you know, again, it’s the company’s expectation of the future is the big thing, right?

00;05;29;08 – 00;05;30;00
Riley Smith
Forecasting.

00;05;30;00 – 00;05;41;22
Dr. Ryan Loy
Forecasting is essentially it and saying, okay, well, the stocks are increasing because the sentiment surrounding surrounding what people can purchase and what people can invest in is, is improving from that.

00;05;41;22 – 00;05;52;02
Riley Smith
You know, that’s why it’s always a gamble. It’s not. That’s right, it’s right. It’s like you gamble your money in the stock market because you’re looking you’re trying to determine what’s ahead of you, not what’s of the now.

00;05;52;02 – 00;06;09;16
Dr. Ryan Loy
That’s right. And so anyway, that was an aside. I just wanted to kind of bring that up because I always like to talk about that. So you know with the fed cutting rates again, or at least the expectation as that stands in this recording that they’ll cut, you know, 0.25 percentage points off of that federal funds rate manner.

00;06;09;18 – 00;06;32;01
Dr. Ryan Loy
So now, yeah, start paying attention. It may it probably and will likely at the time of this recording happen one more time this year, probably about 0.25 percentage points as well. And that would bring that target down, about 1% in total for the year. And that’s going to be a nice little, reprieve for some of these producers in the financial straits, which we’ve talked about before.

00;06;32;02 – 00;06;52;24
Riley Smith
I was talking to a guy this morning, getting my fertilizer prices, and we was talking about operating loans, you know, bankers and, what some of these farmers are going through and what we’ve what he’s heard and what I’ve heard, you know, it’s it’s a big struggle right now. And there’s a lot of lenders that’s having to turn down farmers because they can’t.

00;06;52;27 – 00;06;59;12
Dr. Ryan Loy
I’ve already heard of a few getting called about debt restructuring, debt refinancing. And that doesn’t happen usually at this time, you know.

00;06;59;12 – 00;07;15;08
Riley Smith
No and that’s that’s the scary portion of it is that and we also talked about the fact that there is how good, how good the crops were this year for farmers. The yield. Well I know and it don’t like it don’t matter because you’re still not going to get anything worth it.

00;07;15;09 – 00;07;23;24
Dr. Ryan Loy
That’s right. Is you know, the question of does your yield actually offset that lower price. And most often not always, but most often that answer is probably no, especially in this case.

00;07;23;24 – 00;07;34;13
Riley Smith
But that’s a good thing to know that the the the fed, the fed and interest rate went down. And hopefully that’ll help out some of some of them operating loan expenses or. Right, interest rates.

00;07;34;13 – 00;07;38;05
Dr. Ryan Loy
So the last podcast I did, we talked about when they did cut it and they cut it pretty big in.

00;07;38;07 – 00;07;40;07
Riley Smith
I believe it was 50 basis point.

00;07;40;09 – 00;08;02;27
Dr. Ryan Loy
Or half a percentage point. That’s right. And they’re looking to kind of cut that in half because that was an aggressive move. But at the time of this recording they hadn’t done it yet. But expectations will be that they will do it. And at least one more on the way. But just just as a conclusion on that, you know, the Fed in Jerome Powell, the chair, he actually came out and said this morning that he really doesn’t care about the election.

00;08;02;27 – 00;08;19;00
Dr. Ryan Loy
This is all about data that’s incoming. And so the election from that perspective of the lending perspective and the interest rate perspective, probably won’t have much of an impact as people expect it to have. They’re going to maintain the status quo no matter who the president is at the time, depending on what the data is that they show.

00;08;19;00 – 00;08;46;15
Dr. Ryan Loy
But anyway, that’s a side one of the main reasons we’re coming, you know, coming here today. And what we’re doing this episode for is kind of a it’s actually an announcement. So this is going to be a new little thing we’re doing here. And it’s an announcement for interested participants for a study. And what this study is going to be is basically, exploring the motivations behind rice farmers participation in federal crop insurance programs.

00;08;46;17 – 00;09;07;22
Dr. Ryan Loy
And so we are really seeking interested rice producers to participate in an in-person survey on November 14th, 2024, at Ricelands annual membership meeting. And again, you know, it’s worth noting here that, doctor Hunter Biram and myself are just presenting something that day for that meeting, and they were kind enough to give us a space to conduct this survey.

00;09;07;24 – 00;09;25;09
Dr. Ryan Loy
This is not a Riceland sponsored survey. This is, none of the information, goes to them. It’s all just for, doctor Hunter Biram and myself. And, that’s that’s what we’re interested in doing some analysis on it. And so some important survey details, you know, it’s going to be about 2 to 3 hours of your time.

00;09;25;11 – 00;09;44;12
Dr. Ryan Loy
You know, this is our first go at this survey. And so it may take more it may take less. But one of the things to bring up here is that participation is all voluntary, voluntary and confidential. And so while you will be in a group of people conducting this survey, you know, together, you know, we’ll encourage group discussions.

00;09;44;12 – 00;10;04;07
Dr. Ryan Loy
We’ll kind of walk you along the survey. You know, people don’t have to see your answers. And furthermore, all identifying information will remain with us, with doctor Hunter Biram and myself and the any identifying information will be destroyed upon the completion of the project. So, there may be some identifying information as far as consent forms.

00;10;04;10 – 00;10;19;28
Dr. Ryan Loy
And we’ll make sure that those are kept under lock and keep. So that way you’re not attached to anything. At least your name. The only identifying information on the survey is actually your county that you come from, and your principal crops that you grow. And I will give you a randomized ID number that will be your name.

00;10;19;28 – 00;10;46;24
Dr. Ryan Loy
And so that way when we actually go and analyze this data, nothing is attached specifically to you. Some other identifying information which this is very important to to know. And I want to highlight this. I’m still I’m as the recording of this podcast, I’m working out, the best way for reimbursement. And so one of the things that we’re going to do for the participants of this survey is pay you $200 for your participation, and so that’s per survey.

00;10;46;24 – 00;10;57;12
Dr. Ryan Loy
And so, you know, if you’re completing the survey with, you know, your farm business partner, you all have to split that 200. So it’s per that survey. And everybody can complete one survey.

00;10;57;14 – 00;11;08;10
Riley Smith
And that’s for for all you rice farmers out there. Most of y’all are duck hunters. And I’m just telling you right now that that’s a, I just went by Fort Thompson this morning. That’s a case of shells on the cheaper end.

00;11;08;11 – 00;11;10;04
Dr. Ryan Loy
That’s exactly right. That’s exactly.

00;11;10;04 – 00;11;14;05
Riley Smith
Right. You could believe this is happening at the Grand Prairie Center in Stuttgart.

00;11;14;08 – 00;11;31;18
Dr. Ryan Loy
And I’ll get I’ll get there. And that’s exactly right. So it’ll be at that annual membership meeting of that Grand Prairie Center in Stuttgart. And like I said, for the reimbursement, we’re we’re going to pay you $200 for your participation, and we’re going to pay you. And this is still to be determined, either cash if I can make it work out, or check.

00;11;31;22 – 00;11;55;21
Dr. Ryan Loy
And so if, if we have to write you a check, one of the things that the university will require is a name. I’ll have this form. It’ll be a, you know, a legal form. That, again, will only be retained at the university with doctor Hunter, environment, myself and the expense report people. It’s going to be your name, your address and your Social security number for participation.

00;11;55;21 – 00;12;12;23
Dr. Ryan Loy
And so we just kind of need that. Again, I don’t think I’ll need the Social Security number if I can make cash work. But I don’t want to promise that in under deliver there. So you may get a check. You may get cash. And I’m, I’m hoping that we can pay you cash and make it a lot easier on everybody else, because nobody wants to wait for a check in the mail.

00;12;12;23 – 00;12;14;09
Dr. Ryan Loy
I would I would rather have cash.

00;12;14;13 – 00;12;16;19
Riley Smith
I’d rather have cash to go straight to Macks.

00;12;16;19 – 00;12;42;17
Dr. Ryan Loy
That is exactly right. So in our newsletter this week, it’ll kind of spell out a lot of these details, and it will, in the survey or, excuse me, in the newsletter that was released this week, there’s going to be a sign up page. And where you click that button, it’s going to take you to a sign up page and you put in just your name, your, your first name, last name, your email.

00;12;42;19 – 00;13;01;13
Dr. Ryan Loy
And it’s going to be put into, an email list for doctor Hunter Biram and myself. And that way we can reach out to you all with next steps ahead of time. One of the most important things. And again, I’m leaving this for last because I want to make sure everybody understands what is, kind of necessary in this.

00;13;01;15 – 00;13;27;01
Dr. Ryan Loy
So some of this necessary paperwork, you’re going to have to bring with you is going to be these, FSA, FSA documents that have anything to do with your production, your yields, your, crop insurance indemnities, your crop insurance premiums, anything you get from the crop insurance company, the FSA office or grain elevator settlement sheets from 2013.

00;13;27;04 – 00;13;49;04
Dr. Ryan Loy
Excuse me, from 2013 to 2023 is going to be what’s needed for this survey. So we’re asking, we’re asking you about, participation from the last ten years. And the reason we’re doing that is we’re trying to just look at the trends over time. And the whole reason we’re doing this is one, like I said, we’re exploring that motivation.

00;13;49;09 – 00;14;08;26
Dr. Ryan Loy
But with those sheets and with those sheets, we’re not going to keep those sheets. You’re just going to use those to help inform and help answer the questions on the survey. What we’re hoping to do is to take that real life data to hopefully help inform and improve, federal crop insurance for rice producers in the South and specifically Arkansas.

00;14;08;28 – 00;14;34;11
Dr. Ryan Loy
And so that’s really our motivation for it. The newsletter, kind of contains some background information as to what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. But the important thing to understand is we just we see a trend in, crop insurance participation for rice. And we want to explore that a little bit more and try to help out rice producers, any way we can and try to motivate a better, product or maybe just some, differences in the, protections for them.

00;14;34;13 – 00;14;38;04
Riley Smith
We’ll Good deal, y’all guys, get up, get out and go to the annual meeting.

00;14;38;04 – 00;14;39;03
Dr. Ryan Loy
And that’s right.

00;14;39;04 – 00;14;41;24
Riley Smith
You fill out your survey and get you $200.

00;14;41;25 – 00;15;01;00
Dr. Ryan Loy
That’s right. And so, just to follow up and make sure that I said it, the location and as, as, Riley, alluded to, it’s going to be Thursday, November 14th, 2024, at Rice Land Foods 2024 Annual Membership Meeting at the Grand Prairie Center in Stuttgart. And, we.

00;15;01;00 – 00;15;02;22
Riley Smith
Sugar, sugar town.

00;15;02;24 – 00;15;28;25
Dr. Ryan Loy
We don’t have a specific time yet. But if you’re planning to attend that meeting already, we are actually going to hold the survey immediately following the completion of the, of the entire meeting. So I think if I remember correctly, we’re looking at about 130, 2:00 and hopefully get you out of there before five if we can help it and it will be much better and much easier and quicker process.

00;15;28;27 – 00;15;38;02
Dr. Ryan Loy
Should you bring all those records that we’re requesting you can easily take that information off there, put it on the survey, answer a few questions and go on about your day.

00;15;38;04 – 00;15;40;28
Riley Smith
There you go. Well, you got anything else?

00;15;41;03 – 00;15;42;04
Dr. Ryan Loy
That’s it man.

00;15;42;06 – 00;15;43;02
Riley Smith
Good deal.

00;15;43;04 – 00;15;46;07
Dr. Ryan Loy
Any questions? Reach out to me or Hunter. That was one thing I’ll say.

00;15;46;10 – 00;16;10;00
Riley Smith
Well, we hope to see you at the, Grand Prairie Center in Stuttgart, Arkansas. I’ll be there helping facilitate it a little bit, I guess. And, maybe afterwards we can go get us a bite to eat at the Mexican restaurant, I’ve ate there a bunch. And, call it a day, but, anyway, we thank you for coming in and giving us that announcement.

00;16;10;02 – 00;16;20;26
Riley Smith
Hope everybody listening tries to. If you’re a producer, we, encourage you to go and fill out the survey and go to the Roslin meeting if you’re a producer and if we don’t have anything else.

00;16;20;28 – 00;16;36;02
Dr. Ryan Loy
That’s right. And I think that was it. And just one thing to your point. If you’re a rice producer, that doesn’t mean you have to grow rice every single year. Or if you’ve grown rice, at least you know 1 or 2 times, or currently producing rice. In the last ten years, you are eligible for this.

00;16;36;04 – 00;17;06;02
Riley Smith
Well good deal. Well guys. Y’all stay tuned for more market report. Alrighty, you guys back with your market report December 24 Corn current price is at $4.26 per bushel. Month agos price was at $4.26 per bushel. There’s no difference on that year ago was at $4.69 per bushel. That’s down $0.43. November 24 Rice is at Current price is at $14.47 per cwt, month agos price is at $15.24 per cwt.

00;17;06;02 – 00;17;35;00
Riley Smith
That’s down $0.77 year ago was at 16 , $16.06 per cwt, Thats down $1.59 November 24. Soybeans is at $10.04 per bushel. Month agos price is at $10.53 per bushel. That’s down $0.49 a year agos price was at $13.62 per bushel. That’s down $3.58. July 25 wheat current price is at $6.07 per bushel. Month agos. Price was at $6.37 per bushel.

00;17;35;00 – 00;18;04;23
Riley Smith
That’s down $0.30 a year agos price was at $6.28 per bushel. That’s down $0.21 December 24. Cotton’s at $0.70 per pound month agos price is at $0.74 per pound. That’s down $0.04 a year agos price was at 7676 pounds or $0.76, my bad per pound. That’s down $0.07. And your weekly U.S average for peanuts. This week’s at $480, $88 per ton a month ago.

00;18;04;26 – 00;18;32;11
Riley Smith
Price is at $526 per ton. That’s down $38 a year agos price is at $488 per ton. There’s no difference on that. And that’s your weekly commodity futures this week. Your weekly input prices this week, Urea is at $475 per ton, ammonium nitrate at $465 per ton, ammonium sulfates at $441 per ton, DAP is at $810 per ton, triple Super phosphates at $674 per ton.

00;18;32;13 – 00;18;56;17
Riley Smith
Potash is at $431 per ton in your pellet lime is $230 per ton this week. Your diesel prices this week off road diesel’s at $2.57 per gallon. Highway diesel is at $3.24 per gallon and your Mississippi River level at Memphis, Tennessee this week is at negative. The current level is at -8.44ft, and a year ago was at -5.3ft.

00;18;56;24 – 00;19;08;08
Riley Smith
I want to thank you all again for joining in on another episode of Morning Coffee, Morning Coffee and AG Markets. We hope you enjoyed it and enjoyed your morning coffee as you tuned into another episode. So until next time we’ll catch you on a flip flop.

00;19;08;10 – 00;19;22;19
Riley Smith
Bye bye now!

00;19;22;21 – 00;19;25;15