Market Plus with Chris Robinson

Paul Yeager: Welcome back to the table for the Friday, September 5th, 2025 installment of Market Plus Chris Robinson. The former center for the Colgate football team. You get excited this time of year, don't you?

Chris Robinson: I do, I do, yeah, you had.

Paul Yeager: A hard time. Finding a place to stay because of the Iowa Iowa State football game that had to get you excited, too.

Chris Robinson: It did. I walked in last night and they were already. Tailgating. I was like, it's too bad I have to go to sleep, go to work tomorrow.

Paul Yeager: We're going to talk about tailgating because that ties in to something at the end here. When it comes to commodities and livestock, that's what I call a tease. But we're going to start with China, Chris. Let's go Bradley in Nebraska. He wants to know. It appears that China has exited the soybean market entirely. Can the USA sell enough export beans to other countries to make up the difference, and still come within about 100 million bushels of USDA soybean export projection?

Chris Robinson: Okay, not to get too far inside baseball, but the exports have been actually pretty good. If memory serves me, we're running 2 million metric tons ahead of where we were this time last year, and that's without China. And China is gone. So I don't know exactly. Maybe we'll know in a year or two exactly who's buying these beans and how it's getting done. But the rest of the world likes to buy soybeans when they're at the bottom of a trading range. A dollar trading range, and their one year lows. So that, I think, has helped our exports. I'm a big believer that once this problem in quotations gets solved, at the end of the day, they still have a billion people they have to feed. They have 300 million hogs. They have to feed. They feed it soybean meal. They will be back. I then I think you'll see a pretty good snapback. But can we survive in the meantime? You know, it's nice to see us. We finished around 1040. 1050. That's a lot better than being down at 970. So I'm a glass half full person. I'm not worried about what happens if beans go to $12. I'm worried about if they go to eight. So defend, defend, defend. If you're going to store it, defend us. Every $0.50 is worth defending in my opinion.

Paul Yeager: All right. Well, I think the problem you mean is, is policy related. So let's do a policy question. If we could. Chris, this is Joel in Oklahoma. He wants to know how much would a good old bipartisan farm bill help the markets? I mean, is it going to help a little a lot. Not much.

Chris Robinson: I don't know. I think the biggest thing is supply and the supply and demand is what's really gumming up the works right now. At the end of the day, it would be nice to have a farm bill. Absolutely, positively. The other thing would be nice if interest rates come down, we start to see a little glimmer of that this week with what happened today in the bond market. Those two things together. But at the end of the day, what drives prices is supply and demand. And this year, you know, farmers got out over their skis. I mean, they've you know, we produce too much corn close to you know, I don't care what the number is. Whatever yield you use with the amount of acres that we planted, if it's, you know, when the last USDA report, they were 188 eight, which is 16.7, that's and we usually grow 15 billion bushels. That's the real problem. So I would love to see something where they would say, you know what, we already take a third of the crop for ethanol, which they do. Thank goodness. Let's see if we can bump that up. That would be something that would really help a lot of farmers.

Paul Yeager: Well, California has said E15 is something that could be a possibility. However, there is a push in in 3 or 4 states to not have ethanol at all in their state. So how realistic is ethanol as a solution here?

Chris Robinson: I think it's the driver. What happens with crude oil too, if crude oil is above 70 bucks a barrel, 80 bucks a barrel, then that math problem starts working better and better. But you know, today we hit a three month low. The market's pricing in OPEC is going to have a meeting next week. They're probably going to increase production. So that's that's the real the big what if I think if crude oil prices stay north of 7075 that makes it more attractive. But again you know, you and I've been waiting for a long, long time for them to say, you know, we're going to go from 5 billion bushels out of the 15 to, you know, 20 something like that. That would be amazing.

Yeager: Every bit helps, right?

Chris Robinson: Yeah. Actually, that would be crazy. 5 to 20, but like 5 to 7, 5 to 10. That's that would really, really help because that's the problem. You get rid of the supply and you know well.

Yeager: All let's talk about supply Eric L - his question for you, Chris, is one that has a huge amount of supply. Do you see the wheat market gaining any strength in Q4?

Chris Robinson: The problem with wheat is it's a weed. And somewhere around the world somebody's always harvesting wheat. And I think a lot of people I'm old enough to remember when it was, you know, the U.S. really, really mattered. Now, every time you turn around, Russia's. And it's interesting, Russia's crop always gets bigger. They're always like, oh, we miscounted a little bit. So the problem is the world is awash in wheat. I think the only cure for that is probably you'll see next year, or possibly this year, farmers going to be like, you know what? I'm not going to plant if it's not going to work.

Yeager: Well, okay. You just got done saying we had too much corn. So the wheat marginal acres to corn acres doesn't sound like a good idea. It's going to go to soybeans. Is it going to go to cotton. What's it going to go to in the United States?

Chris Robinson: It's going to stay with corn.

Yeager: So we're going to be back in this situation again next year.

Chris Robinson: Yeah, it's a possibility now. You know, we'll have to see. I mean, but if we plant the same amount of acres that we planted last year, I mean, the margins are there. So I can't wait to see what happens at the end of the year when we get the January report. That's going to be a big because if there's a big carryout of corn, farmers are going to have to make the decision, are we going to plant? And it's kind of we're going to get back to where we were in. I mean, I remember the days, you know, I'll go back to 2013, 2014, 2015, where all farmers wanted. We need 430. We need 430. I mean, I lived through that. We may go back there again. We're like, okay, we're not worried about it. It'd be nice to have $5 corn again, but we have to make sure that this pencils out at all. And so that's what I'd be concerned about. So will farmers plant less acres? Possibly. But we'll have to wait and see.

Yeager: Well, there's two, two topics that we're going to cover here at the end. Let's do this first on maybe taking some land out of production. Let's call Scott and Wisconsin if we could. If grain is not paying the bills, why don't more farmers just go back to grazing cattle on their marginal land and leave it fallow?

Chris Robinson: Okay, questions like that. They really make my antenna go up. And it makes me worry because if one gentleman is thinking that that means a lot of other people are thinking that too. And what does that tell me? It tells me that we're probably near a low for wheat, and we could be near the high in cattle, because if you're willing to make that big of a shift, say, you know what? I'm out of the row crop business. I'm now a rancher. Be careful. That's what I would say. Because if you're making that decision, other people are, too. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. It's a free country. You can do whatever you want to do, but you may be getting out, you know, getting away from what might be. We might just be about to turn. So I'd say if you can hold on for another three, 4 or 5 months, go ahead. Now, if it works out, your operation can do it. Absolutely. Go. Go to it. But be careful. If you're going out and you're buying very expensive mama cows or baby cows right now to start your herd. What you don't want to do, you want to be the person that bought the top, you know, with feeder cattle here at three, 6370, and you want to be six months from now, something happens and we're back down to, you know, sub $3. So be careful.

Yeager: That's the story of the game.

Chris Robinson: Yeah. Be careful if you're going to make a drastic switch like that where you're, you know, you better talk it over with your lender, talk it over with your spouse. But yeah, if the math works, do it.

Yeager: But we're not talking massive changes. I mean massive changes. Yes, I get that. There could be some graduals that get into that, but probably not enough. That shows up on a paper, though.

Chris Robinson: I don't think so. And then again, I've been working with farmers now for 15-16 years, but I've been trading beans and everything for over 30 years. Everybody, sooner or later they may say, well, we're not going to plant this much. It always gets planted. Yeah, yeah.

Yeager: Just like in the spring. 

Chris Robinson: Just like in the spring.

Yeager: Right? Okay. Last thing. Two things kind of tied together here. Diesel and fertilizer inputs is still a story that we're hitting inflationary reasons. What do you see for diesel.

Chris Robinson: Crude oil hit a three month low today I think crude oil drops below 60. It wasn't that long ago we were down to 55 bucks back in April of last year. Three year lows. That's only going to be positive for diesel with guys that I work with. I think if you can get anything bought around the 190 level, if diesel happens to dip back there, take advantage of it. That would be sometimes where I'd be like, this is where I want to fill the tanks and maybe fleeting. You know, the way these things change, the market moves quickly. But I would probably say if I'm waiting, I waited a little bit longer, especially if crude oil gets below that 60 level, $55 level, and that eventually should work through. You know, you talk about inputs with fertilizer. There are guys out there that are much more knowledgeable about fertilizer than I am. There's whole newsletters about just fertilizer. I think that marginal farmers this next year are going to be making the decision. All right. How much am I actually going to do? And it's going to be the agronomist that's going to tell them, look, you can probably cut back to X, but don't cut back to this. So that's I think in the margins. Absolutely, positively, you guys are going to do that because it comes down to a math problem. And you know you don't want to lock in a loss from the day one. So I think that that's going to be something that's going to have to turn now. The people that sell fertilizer, they're going to realize, you know what a lot of these farmers are going to be like, well, maybe not. So hopefully the market will readjust for itself. I'm hopeful that happens.

Yeager: So we're sitting on our hands for fertilizer, diesel for a little bit. Yeah. We're sitting on our hands for wheat. Maybe selling some corn and maybe selling some beans right now. Oh yeah. Did I get the summary right?

Chris Robinson: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we soybeans are probably the most attractive thing to sell corn. Honestly, I really want to get aggressively selling right now. I'd rather sit and wait, but I'd have a defensive floor for 2410. And you don't have to pay a ton for those right now. And if you're going to store it, make sure you do the math there because you don't want to store it and watch corn continue to drift lower. That's what I would say. I mean, don't ignore it. Great. Keep it put under it.

Yeager: We'll keep you coming back. If you keep saying stuff like that. Chris. Thank you. Good to see you again.

Chris Robinson: Thanks, Paul.

Yeager: Thanks, by the way, for coming for our little party too. Good to see you then.

Chris Robinson: It was fun.

Yeager: Thank you. Chris Robinson, everyone. And I do want to say we've had a quite a few and we've had quite a first year of our Market Insider newsletter. Join us. Find out what this is all about. You know, hopefully we've worked out all those bugs. We'll tell some stories about Chris, maybe in there, and we'll begin year two Monday morning. Sign up at Markettomarket.org. Next week we are going to double the livestock analysis and commodity markets with Ross Baldwin and Jeff French. Thank you so much for joining us and have yourselves a great week.

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