Just a little bit after one o'clock. Welcome to this month's agricultural market situation I'll look presented by NBC extension. My name is Dave Ripplinger. I'm a bioenergy economic specialist and I kind of moderate these for the most part. I'm sure many of you have joined us before. We have a pretty full docket this afternoon covering a lot of different things a lot going on in the markets and agriculture and beyond. We'll have a series of presentations. You can ask questions. We'd prefer to use the Q&A tool, although chat works as well. But we'll save those towards the end and cover them as we can. So thanks. All right. Hello everyone. We've done a lot of these and but I'll just introduce myself to anyone who hasn't been on one of these. My name is Brian Parman. I'm the NDSU state ag finance specialist and today I'm kind of going to cover two topics that are a little bit different. But stuff that's in the news that I think that we've had questions on and folks are certainly thinking about and that's inflation and timber prices actually that all lead into home prices because I know folks have been wondering about that and the cost of new home, new construction and existing homes. So first I want to talk about inflation which has been in the news especially the last couple of days and this spike in inflation that's occurred after we got the data from April and one of the things that happened and this happens in commodity markets as well as Dr. Olson will say is when something misses the mark, you know, you've got expectations and then the data comes out and it's either a lot higher or a lot lower, you know, outside of the boundaries of what was expected. You get some market movement and so economists had predicted that a 3.6 percent increase in prices using the core inflation metric from April of 2020 to April of 2021. So they predicted basically a 3.6 percent increase while the data showed a 4.2 percent increase so a eight tenths of a percent difference and the expected gain was 0.2 and you know that was the fastest increase year over year so one year increase in prices since 2008 and the largest jump in core inflation and the difference between core inflation and just inflation in general is that core excludes food and energy which are considered really volatile and so a lot of times that's excluded from inflation because they feel they believe it can distort what's actually going on in the markets depending on when you take the measurement. So the largest jump in core inflation since 1981 so that was a big deal to a lot of folks. We saw equities markets drop, you know, pretty dramatically. We saw movement in bond yields and things like that when this data came out. But my next slide I kind of want to say is what was buried in the headlines of some of these news articles was the fact that the base that was used in order to calculate that inflation was during right at the height of the pandemic. I mean that's the end of April of 2021 and we all know what happened then. Equities markets cratered. Commodity prices were way, way down. A ton of uncertainty. Most of the country was shut down during that period of time. So the question becomes is that really a good month to try to gauge what inflation has done when we had one of the biggest single quarter recession in history occurring during that period of time. So when you use that as the benchmark for your evaluation of inflation is that really telling you, you know, year over year quarter by quarter what the situation is. So my next slide just shows monthly price changes. And if you look, you see that big, big spike below zero on the right. Well, that was that April of 2020. So that is at negative, you know, 0.7%. So a huge drop in prices during April. And then all the way on the right, the peak at the very top that where that line ends. So that's April of 2021. So when you take that measurement between the two, it's a big difference. But really, if you used another month, say February or January or something like that, it wouldn't be quite so dramatic. So again, it depends on what you use for your reference. And if you reference the absolute lowest point that we've had in the last five, six years, and then the highest point that we've had in the last five or six years, you're going to see a dramatic difference. But really, is it as big a problem as the headlines make it out to be? So my next slide, I kind of put it, I try to put it into perspective. So if you look, this is the CPI from 2017 to 2021. And so that that box I've kind of drawn there with the arrow shows that April 2020 to April 2021 difference, which was 4.4.2%. And above what economists had predicted by about 0.8% of a percent. Okay, so we're taking the measurement from the lowest it was over the course of the CPI was in four or five years to the very highest point. Now, if you look at my next slide, let's say we'd used October instead of April. And I realize that's not a year. But if we recall, October was when we were coming out of the recession, that was that first quarter, we had massive growth to get out of the recession there, because we had the quarter two and quarter one were both negative. And if we use that as a baseline, well, then the price difference was actually only 2.4%. And the reason I chose that was because that was the basically the end of quarter three, or the beginning of quarter three, where we were coming out of that recession. And so then on my next slide, I just want to compare, okay, let's, instead of using April of 2020, let's use April of 2019 as our base. Okay, so we're looking at two years from April 2019 to April of 2021. And the inflation over to the course of two years, four and a half percent basically the same as from April 20 to 21 April 19 to 2021, the same amount of inflation. Okay, so so basically the CPI was the same two years ago, as it was one year ago. So there was a big drop in prices because of that recession. So when you use that as the base, it makes inflation look a lot more dramatic than it really was. And what that really implies is if we took a two year and compounded it, that's really an inflation rate over the last two years from April to today of 2.2%. And let's remember that the Fed's target is 2%. So really in the grand scheme on a longer time horizon, that's nothing. That's pretty much what their target inflation rate actually is. So I just had some comments on my next slide about the Federal Reserve and they're basically taking a wait and see approach for the reasons I just mentioned that that was just one month. And the base was the lowest prices that we've had since 2019 because of the big recession we we've fell into. And and as I said, when you compare it to say for instance, October, it's only 2.4%. And then compared to April of 2019, the total price growth growth was four and a half percent for a yearly compounded average of 2.2. And the target is 2%. So the feds made statements that they see the recent inflation spike as a blip in the greater economic recovery and they don't anticipate any change in monetary policy is warranted at this time. So again, a lot of it's because of the base year or the base month that they were comparing this to. If they used two months before that or a couple of months after it wouldn't be nearly as dramatic, we're just basing it off of the lowest that it had been in a few years. And then looking at bonds really quick, what's happened in a lot of this growth in the in the 10 year Treasury yield is because of the fact that these inflationary concerns, folks are wanting a better yield to combat inflation. And if we look at the one year difference, it's pretty dramatic. We went from, you know, about 0.6% all the way up to 1.6% in less than a year. So that's a pretty big, pretty big jump. But my next slide kind of puts it into historical perspective that even though it has a 10 year Treasury yields have increased, we're still about half of what we were in 2018 at the later part of 2018 when it was over 3%. We all remember that and that was as interest rates were moving upwards. So really, we're still in a very low interest rate environment, which some people are concerned about could lead to inflation. And it's having an impact also on the housing market, which I'm going to go into next. But for the foreseeable future right now, and if you look at the expectations for what the Fed's going to do, interest rates are set to remain low despite the inflationary numbers. So I want to move on to timber prices real quick, because this is something that folks have been concerned about as well. If you're doing a home improvement project or thinking about building a new home, and this is spilling over into buying existing homes, timber prices are up, you know, raw lumber 250 to 300% since early 2020, since, you know, that January, February of 2020 pricing, you know, when they benchmark it to. So the estimates are that the fact that timber prices have increased as much as they have, it's on average added about $36,000 to the cost of buying a new home. So a pretty significant increase. And then existing home sale prices increasing dramatically as well, with the days on the market decreasing, I mean, the typical days on the market now are in, you know, a matter of just a week or two, whereas they might have been 3045 days prior to that.  And so that's put some pressure on existing homes as well. In fact, that buying building new homes is become a lot more costly. And so my next slide just shows what timber prices have done. And this is just random length lumber futures on the Chicago Mercatile Exchange. But if you go back all the way to the left and look at, okay, July of last year where timber prices were in prices cost per ton. And then you come all the way to the right, you can see they've increased quite a bit from $400 all the way up to over 1600. And as of earlier today, they're around $1,500. So, you know, three, four, 400% increase in raw lumber prices. So that should that just illustrating it via the graph. So my next slide though, shows the 12 month change in existing homes. And this is what's happened. So prior change from 19 to 20, for the US, that's on the left 6.3%. Price change from February of 20 to February of 21, an increase of 12.2%. And you can see regionally there's some differences. But just about pretty much across the board, double digit increases in home prices. So just every region you check in the mountains, mountain states even more, almost 15.5% New England 14% us there in the East North Central up about 12%. So existing home prices have just spiked pretty dramatically in the last year. Now I took the next slide from my old employer, Mississippi State University, who does a really good job. They have a big timber industry down there and track what's going on in that industry quite, quite closely. And here's the average pine saw timber and chip and saw, as well as mixed hardwood prices from 2010. And I want you to pay attention to the blue line, for the most part, which shows pine saw timber. That's the kind of materials you're going to build houses out of is pine saw timber. Okay, mixed hardwoods are going to be more and saw timber more for like furniture, that kind of stuff, cabinets, whatever. The blue line is what we build houses out of. And you can see what timber prices even did last year. They've been pretty, they've been slowly trending downwards, all the way down to like $20 a ton, which is extremely low. When you think about when you go back to like 2008 and 2007, that was closer to 60 bucks. So literally a third. So even though we're having these high timber prices, okay, at the retail level, for the farmers, for the folks who actually grow and have existing pine stands that are mature and ready to harvest, they're not seeing a lot of that return that's being, I guess the best way to think about it is if we think back to this time last year, we saw meat prices and things like that at the grocery store, really, really high. And yet at the same time, the pork prices and beef and everything else for our livestock was extremely low. So what was the disconnect? It was at the slaughterhouses in the packing plants, right, where they were shutting down due to COVID and had all kinds of logistical issues. Folks were having to maybe even euthanize hogs sometimes because they were ready to go to market, but there was no place to take them. So they were essentially worthless. Well, that's kind of what's happening in the timber industry as well. And so my next slide, I just kind of hit on some of the points. And that is we have these bottlenecks at the sawmills. So we've had low timber prices following the financial collapse of 08 and 09. And that caused a closing of a lot of sawmills, especially the privately owned small ones across the south. So now we've got this big demand surge in timber, but we don't have the capacity to process any more lumber than what we have. And it's less than it was 10, 15 years ago. And then we have an excess supply of standing timber. So in the 1980s, following the savings and loan crash, we had a lot of folks in the south in Alabama and Arkansas and Mississippi, abandoned some pretty marginal cotton or soybean or corn ground and go ahead and plant pine trees. And it takes about 25 years for those things to mature. So if you go from 1985 to today, well, that's 25 years, 20 to 25 years. So we've got all this mature pine ready to hit the market and not the capacity to process all of it, despite the fact that the demand exists. Then something else happened. And less paper used with consumers choosing PDF and email and those kind of things. And so pulpwood prices, which are used to be a revenue generator when you would thin pine stands or hardwoods or anything like that, you would thin them out and you would grind that up and turn it into paper. Well, there's just less demand for it. So the value on that stuff is a lot lower than it used to be. And then at the same time, we've had these home improvement projects and home demand surviving or thrived during the pandemic. And it's created these bottlenecks at the sawmills. So that's kind of what's going on with these with this timber prices right now is the fact that there's just not enough sawmills or capacity to process it. And it's not the fact that we're short on trees. We are flush with both hardwoods and pine trees. We just don't have the capacity to process it right now. And so that's what's driving up these prices. So I'll be on towards the end if there's any questions as usual. And I believe our next speaker is Dr. Frane Olsen. So thank you very much. All right. Thank you, Brian. So my name is Frane Olsen. I'm the crop economist and marketing specialist with NDSU Extension. I thought I'd try and provide a very brief overview of the May WASD report and some of the implications as we move forward throughout the rest of the marketing year. The interesting thing about the May WASD report, the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Investments, is that May is the first month that USDA provides the forecasts for the next marketing year for the crop that's currently being planted. So the market is now watching kind of two different columns in our supply and demand tables, the old crop issues, as well as the new crop issues. So I thought I'd provide a brief update on where we stand with primarily a focus on the new crop numbers, the 21-22 crop year. So on my first slide, I just wanted to provide a context. Dr. Parman talked about this a little bit. This is really about expectations. So what were the numbers the market was expecting to see from these updates versus what did we actually get? So just really briefly, the Reuters as well as Bloomberg, as well as Wall Street Journal, sometimes we'll pull survey, the private analysts and the forecasting firms to say, what do you expect these numbers to look like? And so the top half of this table represents the average trade estimates as well. It's kind of the high end and the low end of that range. The blue numbers on the very bottom are the numbers that came out in the most recent report on April 12th. So as you can see, for wheat and for corn, the numbers we received were a little bit larger than what the average trade estimate was, but it's well within that range. So again, usually early on, as we're forecasting forward, that range of possible outcomes or that range of expectations is pretty wide. And as we get closer and closer and closer to closing out the marketing year, those ranges tend to narrow. So for wheat and for corn, the numbers are a little bit higher than expected, not dramatically higher, but they were a little bit higher than expected for carryover stocks. This is the amount of grain we expect to have in the bin just before harvest. For soybeans, the number was very, very similar to what the average trade guess was. So my next slide, let's dive in a little bit deeper into each of the major commodities. This is the supply and demand tables. I reproduced this. I summarized it a little bit. This is for corn. So very briefly, the column on the far left-hand side is actually two marketing years ago. So that would be the 2019 crop that was planted and harvested in 19 and that we sold in 1920. The middle column in blue is what we consider old crop corn right now. So this is the crop that was harvested last fall. And we're now continuing to sell and merchandise throughout the rest of the summer. The column on the far right-hand side, which is in red, is the current forecast. The first forecast USDA came out with for the crop that's currently being planted. So for our ending stocks forecast, that bottom line number, how much grain are we going to have in the bin just before harvest? The far right-hand bottom corner, that 5.1 billion bushels of corn is actually the forecast for how much grain do we think we'll have in reserve or in storage on September 1 of 2022. So we're looking a long ways into the future. So my point is don't put a lot of pressure on these numbers quite yet. As we move through time and we get more information, USDA will continue to refine and update these numbers every month. However, these forecasts do set the base. They kind of set expectations for people as we move forward in time. And there are a lot of private forecasting firms that will go through and do their own numbers, but these USDA numbers kind of become that baseline. Okay, so without going through, I don't want to go through all of the numbers specifically. I do want to focus on a couple numbers that kind of surprise me a little bit, I guess in the numbers that were released on Wednesday. So on the very top, we're looking at planted acreage, harvested acreage, and yields. And throughout the rest of the summer, we're going to be debating these numbers and arguing about whether they're too high or too low or what's the right number. So as we move through time, just recognize the top half of this table is where there's going to be a lot of discussion and argument because they're easier to monitor. And of course right now, as we enter the growing season, weather is going to have a huge impact on yield and yield potential. And the little asterisks that I have on the far right hand side denote that for the planted acreage, that number, that 91.1 million acres of planted corn came from the March planting intentions report. So that's actually a survey based report. This is what farmers were intending to plant as of the first part of March. We will get an update and I'll talk about that as I close on what was actually seeded. So USDA is going to resurvey farmers and say, well, your planting intentions in March said this, what did you actually seed? And so at the end of June, we will get those numbers for actual planting. So up until actually the July WASDE report, we're going to be using this 91.1 million acres, whether you agree with the number or not. The other point I want to make on yield is that that is a trend line average yield. So what happens is USDA looks back 30 years and they say, what is our trend line growth? What is our average growth rate in yield over time? And they're forecasting forward to say what would be a typical yield given the technology we have available now in 2021. And so for simple math, we're at about 180 bushel national average yield for corn. Again, that number is not going to change in USDA's forecast until we get towards late summer and early fall into that August, September timeframe is when USDA will start updating in a major way, updating some of these numbers. So based on the initial shot, we're looking at about a 15 billion bushel corn crop, which is not a record, but it's very close to a record. When we look at the consumption piece, and this is where a lot of private forecasters kind of rely a lot more on the USDA numbers is they'll take the look at the USDA forecast and say, well, subjectively, I think this number is a little too high or a little bit too low. So I'm going to fall into that trap and analyze and based on my subjective beliefs and biases, let's look at a couple of the key numbers. So for feed and residual, basically the amount of corn that goes into the livestock sector, the current forecast is basically status quo. We're not looking at a major increase or decrease for ethanol consumption, the amount of corn going into ethanol, a slight increase. And that's really a recovery from a downward trend we've been in for the last couple of years. The number that surprised me a little bit was the exports forecast. And again, recognizing this is a very early forecast and also recognizing that the old crop, the forecast for the old crop numbers, which is that 2.77 billion bushels is a record high number. So again, to be a little bit of on the conservative side, I do think USDA did cut that back to something that would be more average or typical or than what we've seen over the last 12 months. Now, again, my personal opinion is I do think that number is probably a little bit low, but we'll watch to see what happens as we move forward in time.  So you can look at what are the expectation for bushels produced this year versus history. Same with the red line. The red line is the total usage or the maroon line. I really want to focus on the blue bars on the bottom, as I've talked about this before, it's the stocks to use ratio. So we're taking ending stocks divided by total use. So what percentage of our typical needs are we going to have in reserve in cases or problem in the upcoming year? So the red bar on the far right hand side is the forecast for the crop that we're planting now today. So again, that number will change in very over time. I don't want to put a lot of pressure on it. The number right next to it that has the red hash marks in the middle of it. It's a blue out line with red hash marks. That's the old crop. That's the forecast for how much grain are we going to have left in the bin on September 1 of this year, the September 1 of 2021. So the point being is if you look back historically at that 2011, 2012, 2013 time period, the last time that we had really, really high corn prices, our current ending stocks levels are getting into that same or very typical range. Thus, the reason we're seeing the pretty rapid increase in corn prices. However, if we have an average yield in 2021, if the crop that we're planting right now has an average yield capacity to it, we're going to start to rebuild some of those stocks. We're going to enter more of that comfort zone for ending stocks and therefore prices will likely soften a bit and become a bit more stable. So thus the reason we're seeing this big price differential between our price spread or inverse in the market between what the old crop corn prices are and what the new crop prices are. Because the expectation is right now, if we have a normal corn crop, we're going to be able to rebuild our inventories and have more of a comfortable position. The next slide focuses in on this demand piece. And this is again where I'm answering or trying to ask a lot of questions. What does this demand for corn really look like? Is higher corn prices going to start rationing use? So the blue line on top is feed individual. I'm just trying to give you some historical perspective on current USDA forecast versus where we have been in the past. The line with the little dots on it is the forecast for the new crop, the ones with more of the dashes of the forecast for old crop. Because we don't know what those numbers are specifically right now. We will know more in the next several months. The point is for feed and feed and residual, the amount of grain going to the livestock sector looks like it'll be relatively stable. We're looking at a small return or increase in the amount of corn going into the ethanol sector. Again, part of that is because we're now opening up our economy again and driving more miles. The wild card in all of this is going to be exports and I know there's going to be tremendous focus on export and export pace. Notice again, this year we're focusing for old crop corn. We're looking at a record corn export levels. So the fact that USDA did back off their expectations for next year's corn exports is not surprising. But I am personally not convinced that's going to happen. So again, this is one of those wait and see kinds of questions. The next slide focuses on soybeans. We're going to shift gears a little bit. Again, we do expect an increase in soybean plantings. That 87.6 million acres of soybean seedings is again based on that March planting intentions report. The 50.8 bushel national average yield is a forecast, but it's a trend line. So we're adjusting the average yield by the increase in technology or better farming practices. So think about that 50.8 as really an average yield for this year. Given those numbers, we'd have about a 4.4 billion bushel soybean crop. Again, not quite a record, but it's going to be a very, very large soybean crop. However, given the demand base, we're going to need those bushels. So if you look at the two major sources of demand for soybeans, which is crushing, again, we crush into oil and meal. The soybean meal goes into the livestock sector. The soybean oil goes into a wide variety of things, including biodiesel. So USDA is again continuing to focus on and forecast a nice steady growth in the crushing demand. And again, we just had an announcement here in North Dakota that ADM is going to build a new crushing facility in Spiritwood, North Dakota, which I think is some of that is built into this expectation where we see a growth in the crushing industry in the United States. The interesting thing to me though is that they also looked at a small, a slight cutback, or actually in my opinion, a pretty significant cutback in the forecast for exports. But again, recognizing that 2020, the old crop forecast for exports is a very large number. So again, being a little bit on the conservative side, I do think USDA, when in doubt, will air a little bit on the conservative side for the demand portion of it. If you drop to the bottom line, yes, we're going to be able to rebuild, slightly rebuild our inventories of soybeans based on these expectations. However, if you look at the next slide, that building, that rebuilding of our inventories is relatively small. Next slide, please. So again, when we look at it, a stocks to use ratio, the current ending stocks to use ratio for the old crop, for the crop that we harvested last year, we're now using up this year, is equal to our record low that we saw in 2013-14. So the fact that we're rebuilding that inventory in a small amount really is not going to change fundamentally the supply demand conditions for soybeans. So unlike corn, if we have an average soybean crop, we're going to be sitting in a very similar position this time next year, just because of that strong demand base. Okay, so the expectation then is soybeans, soybean prices will likely continue to be relatively high based on history, but also extremely volatile. And so one of the things we're going to have to get used to, especially as you go into the growing season now, is that we're going to look at some very, very volatile grain prices. So next slide just shows the historical demand side, the usage. Again, I wanted to give some historical perspective. We've seen this slow, steady growth rate in crush demand, which is the blue line over the last several years, that demand base or that increase in crush capacity looks as though it's continuing. Again, from my standpoint, I think that USDA might be a little bit overly conservative on their forecast for soybean exports. But again, we'll have to wait to see. There is the expectation, again, going into next season that Brazil will also continue to increase their soybean production and land devoted to soybeans. So this is a global market and we have to recognize that. The next slide focuses a little bit on wheat. Again, looking at the supply demand conditions for wheat. Planted acreage, there's still some uncertainty about how many spring wheat and duramakers will be planted, but most of the winter wheat seedings have already been completed. We have a pretty good idea, a pretty good sense for what the winter wheat seedings are. We are now starting to debate what's the size of the winter wheat crop. And so even though that 50 bushel national average yield is a trend line yield, again, it's the average yield adjusted for for technology, we will soon be getting an in particular in the June report, we'll starting to get some better forecast or predictions of what that winter wheat yields might be. If you look at total production, total production for wheat is expected to be relatively stable, very similar to what we've seen the last couple of years. When we look at the demand base, when we look at total usage, the food consumption portion of it, basically domestic milling, very, very stable has been for many years. I'll show you a graphic in just a moment. USDA is looking for a slight increase in the feed and residual number for the new crop wheat. I do think part of that is because of the very high corn prices we have right now and some of the livestock producers looking for alternative feed sources. But once again, a little bit of a surprise to me is this this softening or weakening of the export demand for wheat. Now, in the global wheat market, as I've stated before, we have a tremendous competition base in particular from the Black Sea. And we have to be aware of that. We do have these core traditional customers that we can rely on. But the question is how price sensitive are they really going to be as we move forward in time? So the next slide to give you a historical perspective of stocks to use ratio, again, we're focusing in on those blue bars. We are starting to take our US inventories of wheat. Now, this is all wheat blended together. We're starting to bring these inventories down. But if you look back historically, they're still at the upper end or kind of not surplus, but they're at the upper end of the normal range. So we still have plenty of wheat available in the US system in particular for hard red winter wheat. Now, I know there's some spring wheat producers are saying, yeah, but what about spring wheat? And what does the spring wheat yield potential look like? Not only here in the US, but also in Canada. And obviously, that is something that's driving the spring wheat market as we move forward. So again, the weather and the very, very dry conditions here in North Dakota, as well as extending in the Manitoba and Saskatchewan are definitely something the spring wheat market is watching very closely. So on my next slide, just to give you a perspective of what's happening from a demand base for wheat, the blue line is domestic milling. Again, this is the food classification that USDA uses. The red line is exports. And I guess I just really do want to point to you that our export tends to the forecast for exports as well as historical exports seem to be stabilizing. And what's really happening is we're losing some of that international market base. Some of those countries that would sometimes buy from the United States if they were cheap enough, but would often go someplace else have basically left the US market. And so now we're left with these core countries that are buying US wheat. And yes, they're very stable, they're very good buyers of US wheat, but we can't ignore those markets and we have to be very, very careful to try and protect those. When we look again on the blue black bar, which is the feed and residual relatively small number, but USDA is forecasting a slight uptick. Again, I think part of that is because of the very strong and high corn prices right now. My last slide, and then we'll move on. Just as a reminder, some dates to mark on the calendar, the next major update will be for the June WASDE. Again, the World Agricultural Supply Demand Estimates will also get a production report on June 10th. So those two reports are going to be released at the same time. The interesting thing about the production report in June is that will give us an updated, formal update forecast for winter wheat production. After that, the next major one, which I know is going to be followed very closely, is the acreage report. Again, that's that repeat survey. It's a survey of farmers to say how many acres did you actually plant versus what your planting intentions were in March. That will be released on June 30th, and I know that report is going to be followed very closely. So with that, I'll stop. I'll turn things over to Tim Petrie and move into the livestock sector. Good afternoon, Tim Petrie here. If we go to my first slide, we're going to see that there's been a big change in particularly cattle prices since the last time I talked to you. I have several charts to show you that. The big reason for that is it's twofold, but mainly corn that Frane talked about. He talked about the March 31st planting intentions report. And so on this chart, the black bars are the May feeder cattle futures, and then the green line is just the closing May corn futures. And so you see in the last month since that report came out, quite a dramatic change. Corn futures up $2 and went from $5.50 up to $7.50. And then on the feeder cattle side, May feeder cattle that were up at $1.50 went down to $1.30. They have rebounded here in the last week, but it took a $20 slide, which was kind of what we expect to change. Calf prices 10 cents change. Corn 10 cents change. Calf prices $1 in the opposite direction. So it was a lock step on there and more on that in a minute. I say in the bottom there, volatile prices will continue. And that is a given. Corns down the May corn is down the 40 cent limit today. Feeder cattle then you would think would be stronger, but they are up a little bit, 65 cents to $1, but live cattle, the fed cattle are down $2 to $3. So the volatility is there tremendous today and that's going to continue. So go to the next slide just to bring you up to date from last time. Here's the calf prices that we usually talk about.  A month ago we were at the top right there at $1.75 and our expectations were that we would get up to $1.80 like we were the last three years and maybe use that blue 2018 as a guide, but you see the big change there. We dropped from $1.75 down to $1.60 with the corn going up. And then also a little pressure with the range conditions that are terrible, obviously in North Dakota into parts of South Dakota and Montana then down on the southwest. So we brought cattle down, calves down quite a bit and almost similar to last year. Looking ahead to fall is our big question and it all depends on what Frain said and so I'll talk more about the corn feeder cattle relationship there again and look at the fall feeder cattle futures. I think we could still do better than the last couple of years, but we need what Frain talked about in that $15 billion bushel corn crop and lower corn prices to come through. So go to my next slide. This is the same slide except for our 800 pound feeder steers. You see the same thing we were last month when I talked to you one month ago. We're at $1.50 now. We're at $1.35 down $15 at red line right in the middle there. And you know, the May futures, they're closed today $1.3745, but when we get into those fall futures again, they're still up in the $1.50s. November closed today $1.5395. That's above where the prices were last year, but again dependent on on corn going down and then even that's those red squares. If we go to the left hand side of the chart, you see those orange boxes, that's the 2022 futures. So be next spring. And again, they're higher than they have been anything on this chart. We've had two straight years of cow liquidation and have another year this year because of the drought. So we're going to have a smaller calf crop and lower beef production into the next three years. So that's going to weigh into that. So go to the next slide. Just just to show you why the the fall feeder cattle futures are so much higher and we this these are yesterday's closing. Again, we had changes today, but I had to prepare this yesterday. So on the left hand side is feeder cattle. And you see yesterday, May futures closed at $1.3675, but by August, the next futures contract available up to $1.5052 there. And the reason why then is just like what Frayn mentioned, go to the right hand side. Yesterday, May corn was $7.57 and a half again, it's probably it's off last I looked 40 cents today, but and then go to the September was 621. So you know, September corn was $1.36 a bushel lower than now. And so that would be supportive to calf prices and feeder cattle prices. If we use our rule of thumb that I told you before that shown on the bottom can send bushel change in corn, change calf prices a buck. 136 would say that that feeder cattle should be 1360 higher. And so you go back to where we were before yesterday, that made a September feeder cattle futures were 1378 kind of lockstep on our rule of thumb there. But again, we're a long ways from even getting all the corn in to harvest and 15 million bushel to whatever it might be. So there'd be a lot of volatility as Frayn mentioned, what are exports going to do the big question go go to the next slide then. The other part of the picture for feeder cattle prices, of course, are fed cattle prices. And you see a much different story here on fed cattle, although they've backed off the last couple of weeks are going to be up this week, another dollar or two. So kind of even their last couple of weeks. But when you look at the futures, those red squares there, you know, after that seasonal low in July, you know, we're up to $130 there by December, all through the rest of the year, quite a bit higher than the last three years. Of course, we had the pandemic last year, but higher than 2018. The reason why feeder cattle futures are not a lot higher, like the fed cattle futures are is is the difference is corn. And but this is obviously supportive for calf prices into the fall. And then next year, those orange squares on top, where, you know, the futures market is saying, we're going to have the best fed cattle prices that we've had really since back in 2016. That's based on a number of factors. We're going to have lower beef production next year, because our cow herd has went down. We were at record exports now on beef. Now, if the domestic economy improves and restaurants open up and so on. So that, you know, that's going to be supportive to calf prices as well. So go to the next slide, just kind of show you, you know, what corn prices and feed prices have done to to the feeding sector and why feeder cattle prices have went down and and, you know, our below our month or two ago expectations, you know, on the top, we're just looking at feedlot margin there. So looking at feed costs, just go to the right hand side a year ago at this time for feeding 800 pound steer to 1450. Feed costs were about $262 and now for 800 pound cattle that we're placing last week, that feed cost is $575 or $579 and so a tremendous increase there. And the next line is breakeven. Last year for 800 pound cattle placed at this time, 96 breakeven. Now, you know, 126.50. The good news at least of yesterday is these live cattle were 130. They backed off today did close at 127.80. So it's getting nip and tuck. But the futures is still above the breakeven price. So even today, a small profit per 100 weight could be locked in. And then the next one down just shows the the difference in why you know, with the feeder cattle have went down last year, 70% of the of the cost was buying that that of all our costs was buying feeder cattle now that's down to 59% because we had they had to bring calf prices down because the the percentage of costs were last year at this time 16% went to feed and now this now we're up to about 37% of our cost. So on the bottom chart just kind of shows that you know if we would have been at the status quo of a month or so ago, we were kind of right on the average of about $27 feeder 800 pound steers above fed steers. But you see in the last month, that's went down to, you know, about a $16 spread there, because fed cattle stayed about the same, but but the feeder cattle have have kind of plummeted there in the last month. So go to the next slide. You know, there's the drought monitor, you're aware of how dry it is. Keep in mind when Ron talks to you about this. So go to the next slide. And, you know, it is very dry, particularly in most western two thirds of North Dakota, like I said, into Montana, South Dakota. So we're pastures are not greening up and we're having a lot of problems and and Ron is going to talk to you about some payments from the government. But anyway, you see beef cow slaughter there on that top chart has ratcheted up quite dramatically here in the last several weeks. And so any cow that doesn't have a calf or that loses a calf or some that even have a calf and and producers are having to cut back. So slaughter is picking up kind of somewhat the good news on the bottom in terms of call call prices, although they have backed off just a little bit here in the last couple weeks, they're still very similar to the last couple of years. So, you know, compared to the fall call prices are are usually higher. And and so yeah, it's let's, if we are short of pasture, let's get some rid of some of those non producing cows. So go to the next slide. You know, there are all kinds of sales going on now, typically this time of the year our auction markets would be going to and every other week schedule and you know, just a few cows coming in, the male lost a calf or whatever and in a dabbling maybe if some replacement heifers that aren't getting bread or whatever. But you know, we're going full bore now a lot of our auctions are holding two sales a week just to look at show you some prices here. Last week, Stockmans and Dickinson had a special bread cow and and and a pair sale wide range in prices depending on the age and quality and so on. And so I won't go through all these but you know, pairs brought all the way from a thousand to $2,000 a thousand dollars spread there and bread cattle on the right hand side from 775 up to 1310. So, you know, the main take home message here is if if you have some forced liquidation of cattle that you hadn't planned on and such things as pairs or still some bread cows or replacement heifers be sure to contact your market in as far in advance as you can because they're holding special sales and and you know, and so on some of these sales they only want bread cows or or or cow calf pairs they don't even they don't even want way up cows. So auctions are holding way up cow specials bread cow have sales and so you don't want to have the wrong market class in there where the buyers aren't expecting that. So again, check with your markets all the different auction markets are holding special sales and be sure to contact them that way they can advertise what you what you're going to bring in in terms of pairs and so on and make sure there are buyers there so be sure to do that. So go to the next slide just finish up here a little bit on sheep again we're short of grass and and and we have a lot of sheep operations in our area as well and so kind of the good news there again and if you know the bad news is we might be short of pasture but the good news is that on the lamb side at least prices are are hanging in there and are are pretty good as as you can see in the charts and I won't go through all the numbers uh you know call use the first thing to that should go if they're you know don't have a have weaned the lambs and so on and also very very good prices on on use there are 180 pound you bring $80 and so that generates some money way higher than historically it has been in I know some people are are wondering about lamb say sheep and lamb sales but again because of the drought there are a number of of markets that are holding special sheep and lamb sales I won't go through all those again either but Travis Hoffman our sheep specialist just put together Bismarck is having a special sheep sale today a kiss tomorrow in Mandan and you know Bowman has going to continue the regularly scheduled sales here in North Dakota and then along South Dakota as well so there are outlets if we have to get rid of of the of or kind of reduce sheep because of of pasture so let's hope it rains and and Brian just said it was sprinkling at his house here just a minute ago so let's get some rain and go on to Ron to see how we might get some livestock forage payments okay thank you Tim yeah good afternoon Ron Haugen extension extension farm management and just I want to talk about the livestock forage program so if you go to the next slide it's just the basic definition here it's the LFP program it's administered through the FSA office it's for provides payments to eligible owners or contract growers who have covered livestock who have suffered a loss because of a drought as simple as that and the next slide just talks about a more of a definition is that if if you are grazing on federal federal land and and because of a fire then you can't graze you're also qualified for this program not necessarily drought but fire as well so next eligible livestock grazing animals and it's all based on on nutrition and and animal units and there's there's quite a few different species that are eligible I'll just kind of read them off here alpaca alpacas beef cattle buffalo bison beef low dairy cattle deer and elk and emus and a lot more these specialty ones equine goats llamas reindeer and sheep and so with all those with all those items there then they qualify because during the normal grazing period for the pacific type of grazing land or or the pasture land for the county and also then if there's a fire next um now here's where we get into the payment calculations and uh and it's all based on the drought monitor that tim had a map of there earlier and and we all kind of know about how that drought monitor works with the d2d3d4 so basically in order to qualify for a payment if you are in a in a county that's an in in d2 for at least eight consecutive weeks during the normal grazing period you can get a one monthly payment okay now there is no two monthly payment it jumps right to the three the next next line there uh the d d3 area if you if you're in d3 in any area of the county during the normal grazing period and uh north dakota's grazing period is uh april 15th to october 15th i believe um and then you then you can get three monthly payments and then the next jump up is if you are in d3 um in for the uh any any area of the county for at least four weeks then or d4 for any time then you get four monthly payments then the last is five monthly payments that's the maximum you can get and that's if you're in d4 in any in a county for four weeks but they don't necessarily have to be four weeks in a role and the five monthly payments is is the most you could get so the next slide will show a map here of north dakota and these are the payments that just came out from fsa where maybe jumping the gun i don't know if they're actually official yet but i think i think they're pretty close to being official and you can see there in the southeast part of the state there's zero payments and then there is no counties with one payment they just jump right to the three payments and then the rest of the state basically the whole the whole state is is generally in the four category okay so next um there is our we have a tool here that we developed the lff llfp spreadsheet and there's the website where you can get that next and here's just a little snapshot of what the tool looks like you pick your you can put in your name there and you pick your state we do have montana and south dakota as well but for the simple example here we just pick north dakota pick burley county we just put in 100 head of beef and 50 head of non adult beef weighing over uh over 500 pounds and the rates there you can see the one month the one month payment rate for for beef is 31 18 and for the non adults 23 38 dairy cows 81 and and look down there for the various specialty uh livestock sheep comes in at 7.79 so the next next slide shows the the the entry for the bottom part oh can you go back to the previous slide david yeah if you've noticed there the 100 head times 31 18 is the 3118 and then the 1169 the total there is 4287 so remember that number that's line a and now the next slide that then then you enter your pasture acres in and we're just we just have this example have 1100 acres of native pasture and 200 acres of improved and when you do that it pulls in the animal units for the for the state and the county that you're in it it automatically calculates the the animal unit capacity so for 1100 divided by 9 it's 122 and then it uses the the the beef rate for your pasture the highest grazing rate then and so based on that you get a pasture payment of 53 69 that's line b now the way the formula works you take the lesser of line a or line b and remember that number from the previous slide was 4287 and then the formula says you take 60 percent of that 2572 and we're in burley county so we we get four payments for that so we get 10288 and then we the government takes a little bit for the sequestration uh 5.7 that's uh that's a little foggy because the that may change in the middle of the year because of their fiscal year but that's the way that's the way we interpret it at this point so around 9700 dollars is what the person would get in burley county and if it goes up to five payments then you'll get more so next is just this please contact your fsa for further details they have all the information and you can apply for that and now we're going to move on to our next speaker dave rippler thanks ron yeah so dave rippler bioproducts bioenergy economic specialists i'm going to call my today's talk the energy situation there's a lot going on uh and a number of markets a lot going on in the news i'm going to touch on a few of those friend you already mentioned uh the spirit wood announcement i've been in the works for a number of years uh and and was finally announced earlier this week that adm was going to be building a soybean crush plant in spirit woods or just outside of jamestown and to my knowledge on the site of the the former car hill uh malting facility about 350 million dollars 150 000 bushels per day i just give you some idea of how much material that is just looking at our average acreage our average production our average yield for 2020 it's 1.6 million acres of double s there uh 1.6 million acres of soybeans of north coat of soybeans out of the 5.7 million we had grown last year you're talking about it almost a third of our acres uh in state would be going to this plant that's a lot uh because of its location some of the soybeans almost certainly be coming out of south dakota and likely minnesota as well but i want to let you know the magnitude of this uh frankly give them some some comments earlier this week what this means to growers having that that local destination for soybeans and obviously they definitely positive news in terms of basis i want to talk a little bit about vegetable oil and what this means uh adm did announce uh in their release earlier this week that they will be selling their vegetable oil to marathon dickinson so that's a converted petroleum refinery in in dickinson uh that that's been under a reconfiguration for a little over a year so it could make renewable diesel with with vegetable oil or other or other fats and greases uh just so you know a little hip pocket information it's actually right now the second largest renewable diesel plants in the country uh the only one actually in the midwest the the largest one is in louisiana uh really kind of in that that that gulf oil petroleum nexus down there they had the announcement that they expect to receive soybeans uh if in 2023 so the fall of 2023 with that crop um which which is just a little ways out um just a little background talking about trends and why this kind of makes sense um obviously we've had this tremendous growth in soybeans in the last 20 years 20 25 years here in north dakota so we obviously have the supply most of that has been export bound which we don't have a market you know especially in the state for that type of material and that was driven by demand for plant protein but we were always sending these these full fat soybeans these these beans that would need to be crushed and then the crushed or fed whole which you typically don't want to do or at least you know you need to figure out the ration the nice thing about this plant really is it provides that optionality where we can crush here and market the the meal and the the oil separately and this makes even more sense now with the the amount of profits available in renewable diesel sector uh the the prices that us vegetable oils receiving as well as other uh fats oils and greases uh have a chart here just if you've not been playing close attention uh depending on who you talk to renewable diesel is the primary driver uh in a lot of the vegetable oil movement in the last five or six months uh there's been a lot going on generally but there's a reason why actually picked august 22 versus may of this year even summer of of this year because if you look further out it's i'm trying to get to the point where you're thinking that you know it's not just our current supply and demand situations that are really going to drive this it's there is something bigger longer that that's going to be uh affecting this and really looking i'll touch on it just a little bit the amount of demand for renewable diesel in the next five years could increase two to five fold which would obviously have a huge impact not only on vegetable oil fat oil and grease but all of agriculture um so just a little bit of background too because there's often confusion renewable diesel and biodiesel are not the same thing uh there there's a little bit of uh flexibility in terminology um but i'll i'll i'll give you the definitions that i use that are most commonly used the whole point of this is to avoid some of the confusion uh biodiesel is made with transesterification okay so what is that well it's it's a really simple thing you add a little alcohol it changes the viscosity of the material um and allows you to blend that what comes out with diesel um to some extent so if i take my vegetable oil fat grease um go through that process i make biodiesel i can meet that spec renewable diesel i can use those same inputs but the process i use is much more expensive i can use hydro treating which is typically the case uh you can also use some other processes but it's much more expensive so it's this traditional petroleum refining process we're going through and the the material that comes out which we will call a renewable diesel actually meets the diesel spec so there's no blend wall has nothing to do with that really because what's coming out meets that diesel spec and so that makes it much more marketable uh into low carbon fuel markets and just in general both are extremely low carbon fuel so they have certain incentives in terms of the rfs at the federal level uh and even more so with low carbon fuel standard states like california uh but there's this tremendously large market for renewable diesel that's growing as states uh add uh low carbon fuel standard so washington just did that uh last month uh colorado i think is close if they haven't already um and so that markets growing this renewable diesel fuel really hits this sweet spot but what it does do is it distorts the market because the the price that a refiner would be willing to pay for vegetable oil now as a feedstock for renewable diesel is extremely high uh so that's depending on who you are as a farmer that's good news because it's going to be a demand pull on on vegetable oil soybean oil on soybeans uh if you wanted to go into food or something like that uh you know there's going to be a little bit of competition uh here's a map of uh from plats that shows a couple of the projects you can see marathon there in purple pretty large uh facility already built the other one is is that re g guess our facility it's been an operation for over a decade uh down to louisiana but you see all these other projects that are coming online where they're they're being converted now uh and we'll come online the next two to five years there's kind of a split of things if you look at that map there's there's a bunch in california because that's where much of this material is going and then if you look at the you can even look at marathon dickinson as part of that or holly frontier those were smaller refineries that were challenged to some extent because of their location and their size and their other reasons and so they make a whole lot of sense that are much easier to convert to uh renewable diesel just kind of doing that mapping so this marathon plant in the actual footprint of the marathon plant is not extremely large but it'll it'll be producing the equivalent of 180 million gallons of renewable diesel so i mean that's the size of theralts in in in castleton so basically as large as any dry mill corn ethanol plants so i mean you know these are major biofuel facilities even though within the scheme of the petroleum sector they're really kind of small make a couple of comments about the colonial pipeline shutdown because it does impact energy markets although really not as broadly as it should have a background on that there's a ransomware attack to shut down the colonial pipeline so it's interesting so the colonial pipeline does move all of these refined products from the gulf uh across the southeast all the way up to the the ports of new york new jersey uh has gasoline jet diesel heating oil a lot of material um you know about 10 of the use so you know it's uh it should be two million barrels uh a day are moving in that pipeline obviously it shut down the biggest thing that's happened is as we start looking towards shortages is this is a clearly consumer driven event this is really not much different than the toilet paper issue a year ago people got a little bit excited the lines formed one one gas station runs out of gas all of a sudden they all run out of gas and if you look at this map which is from the washington post you see all of these red dots which are stations with reported shortages you know all across the southeast you know up into the mid-atlantic um which really shouldn't happen because there is storage in place you know this is this pipeline it moves a lot of material but there's storage all along that pipeline and some of these markets especially i look at florida you know they have a different supply chain you know they are not you know traditionally served by by colonial um at the same time if we actually get all the way up to new york new jersey they aren't affected hardly at all because they have the ability to accept freight from from other states and they have an absolutely tremendous amount of storage there as well but this the situation is is there it's going to it's going to be there for you know a week or so as things kind of get back online in terms of the physical sense of actually having product at the retail station i did see just prior to the webinar starting that the that the brand some has been paid it was five million dollars i think it's also really interesting that the folks who did this the well-intentioned folks who did this said they didn't mean to cause anybody any trouble and we'll we'll see how that ends up shaking out on some other comments just about gasoline now because with inflation comments and like brian started with uh energy is a big one of those food is a big one of those housing costs are are a big part of that right now and in north dakota we really haven't seen that big of a change uh in our prices so this is this chart is is based on something from triple a they get their data from opus which is the oil price information service similar to dtm so here's these prices for regular gasoline the red is national the blue is north dakota and if we see if we go back yesterday we're we're up less than a penny if we even go back a week we're up about two and a half cents up about seven cents over the last month nothing extreme and actually nothing necessarily surprising as we move into the summer months again we're going to be seeing that transition but if we go to other states and this is north carolina you can see that there's been these these huge differences same data source a different chart in north carolina on average the different the the price of gasoline this is regular has gone up almost 18 cents and so that's something as a consumer you definitely see and and possibly change your behavior about up almost 26 cents over the last month kind of that same scale the one thing i'd say about all of these energy prices and food prices and and i think brian mentioned this as well you know it taken with a broader perspective it's not a big deal but i think it's something still the to pay attention to i'd also kind of step back a little bit too with that same sort of perspective and understand that we're almost certainly going to see an increase in energy prices for may and likely june in part because of this colonial pipeline situation in part because we're going to be switching over to summer blends which are more expensive we do compare year over year so we do compare apples to apples with with those types of things but i think we're going to see a tremendous increase in those energy prices that continued increase those energy prices but not to be too concerned unless those numbers end up being really big or if they persist throughout the summer so those were my comments and i see that we have some questions just stop for a second and bring everybody else back online just so you know please use the q and a tool if you can although the chat certainly does work um just letting you know our next webinar is scheduled for june 10th and as frame mentioned so that's the day vote next was the comes out so that'll be you get a fresh off the press on that one and if you'd like to see these slides or recordings of this or any previous seminars they're available online at the url on your screen it usually takes a day or so to get the current edition up but we'll get that up as quick as possible so with that i will jump over to questions and if anybody wants to field their own otherwise i'll i'll pitch them i uh i'll just answer mine real quick because i have to i have another uh engagement i have to leave for in about three minutes but i had a question about timber prices and them hanging out and how long i expect and i've read some articles and i put it in the chat box but uh that they're supposed to be and this was written in 19 but 22 new sawmills coming online in the south by 2022 one of the big problems they've had as i mentioned was pulpwood became worthless the structure of the mills as they used to be where they process things like pulpwood and stuff and technological improvements have kind of made some of these other mills obsolete and not profitable uh so i i think that timber prices are going to soften for two reasons one we're going to have more processing capacity here in the next few years uh and number two i mean eventually some of this pent up this demand is going to be softened once the the timber needs are met for those guys so you got you got a demand side that's probably going to soften up in the next four or five years and then you're going to have an a capacity increase in the amount of lumber that we can actually process so i i would expect that you're going to see timber prices hold or even come down and that'll do another thing and that's transfer some of this money these higher prices to the actual producers the growers uh rather than at the at the milling because there'll be more competition for timber and the ability for those guys to dictate prices will uh soften up a little bit so you know if you're thinking about building a house might be a good idea to hold off for a few years because i i think that right now you're going to pay pay up and and you could probably save some money down the road thanks ryan all right i guess i'll i'll jump in with uh with uh in trying to answer those two questions one about corn and then um so what does the carryover of corn mean for for producers uh we will see lower prices do this how does the number of bushels economically impact producers at the at the producer level and then also what about the impact of the drought so what i was trying to get at is is absolutely the carryover does have an impact on on producer level prices obviously we have when we look at total supply we have not only what we produced this year but also what we had inventory last year that we can bring forward and so the carryover stocks numbers are really are important but they they are the two pieces to the puzzle so as typically as carryover stocks get smaller as our carryovers get smaller we tend to have average prices and prices become a lot more variable um and and just on corn specifically if you look at that you remember that on my graphic i had the current usda forecast was for a higher carryover for new crop for next year i looked at the prices closing prices today so old crop closed uh for july at 675 per bushel on the futures versus december futures for corn is 558 so you got a dollar and 17 cent differential there with new crop being higher than the old crop again very very strongly signaling that the old crop supplies are tighter than the new crop based on the assumption we're going to have an average yield coming back into the weather will drought and drought conditions impact prices absolutely our margin for error isn't that is still thin enough in all the major commodities that if we have dry conditions if we do not have the large crops we're expecting it is going to have a significant impact and we will likely see old crop or the new crop prices start to recover and and that price differential narrow david i could answer the question for me there um a question about the 2020 calculator and updating that don't don't update your 2020 calculator just go and download the 2021 which is posted uh and that's just a lot simpler to do it that way great thanks ron and another question um the shutdown of the hernando de soto bridge so i-40 crossing the mississippi near memphis uh shut down because of structural issues and they stop barge traffic and there it's going to take weeks to repair um i'll just throw it to frame what do you think that's going to do frame that that's a mess i mean it's interesting being here in north dakota because i know you know how much of our crops go west right and so but if you think nationally how much of our grain travels to the gulf it's a bunch and it goes under that bridge so and and they will definitely have an impact uh there's going to be in my it it will all depend upon how long the bridge is out of commission and how long they they restrict traffic um if this is a a shorter term in the matter of several weeks and then get it repaired to a point where they feel comfortable reopening the river you know it'll be a temporary disruption but it's not going to be a major impact especially at the farm level however if this extends for several months if this is something where we're going to have a shutdown what it really means is we're going to have to reroute that grain and try and find an alternative system and a lot of that will then happen not because the the grain flow will transfer from the barge traffic onto rail traffic and the rail traffic going south is not as efficient as the rail traffic we have from here going east west because of our of our what they call the northern corridor so the moral of the story is uh short term it's really going to have an impact on on on the the exporters the company that are has now have already booked their their grain and are trying to figure out how do we get these these these vessels as they arrive how do they get them filled longer term it will start impacting the basis levels at the local elevator or at the local farmers uh position we will likely not see a major shift up here in North Dakota but if you were to live along the Mississippi River if you're going to be in central Iowa central Illinois you'll certainly see the difference at for the prices locally okay thanks friend and I think that that was all of our questions uh if you guys see any more um I just want to thank everybody for joining us thank the panelists again today um it's been a enjoyable uh interesting talk it's it's I think 2021 is going to be an interesting year following up on 2020 um again if you'd like to see this slide deck or recording of this presentation or previous presentations will be on the url I just shared uh if not I hope you have a great uh late spring and I hope it rains a bunch soon thanks


I'm Sean Allison, the Command Sergeant Major for Task Force War Horse in Battle Group Poland. And I'm Sean Castilla, the Commander for Task Force War Horse in Battle Group Poland. On behalf of the Soldiers from Task Force War Horse, we would like to wish our families back home a safe and happy holidays and a great start to the new year. Without your support from back there, we would not be able to accomplish our mission over here. 2022 has been an incredible year, and Command Sergeant Major Allison and I are very proud of the Soldiers of the Battle Group. Although we can't be home for the holidays, we are very definitely with you in spirit, and we look forward to seeing you soon. So from us to you, we wish you a very merry Christmas, happy holidays, and a happy new year. Honor and courage, stronger together.