Grain Sales

[pickarock]

What to do.... Sell now or hang on. Sold some Canola off the combine and now wondering if should have sold it all then.

[fjlip]

Your are not alone. Same for fertilizer, herbicides and fuel! When to buy? Markets are scary at present.

[hobbyfrmr]

For selling canola, wait for $10.50/bushel, then pull the trigger.

[charliep]

Will leave forecasts for others.

My only contribution is to be aware of your cost of production/margins and be prepared to lock in both inputs and crops when decent profit is available. Cross hedging by matching your decision to purchase inputs with forward crop sales. The theory (you can argue) is that higher crop prices will likely see input prices rise. Lower crop prices would be matched by less pressure to increase inputs.

To be more specific, if you have locked in $84/acre of input costs (you put the products in), then I would consider selling $84/acre (8 bu at $10.50/bu) of canola. Put in your own numbers.

[parsley]

Don't forget to pencil in the additional cost of high interest rates that are looming. Pars

[pickarock]

Some great advice. Could anyone suggest a good site that gives a daily price by bushel and also displays a history by date for the last month or more. All on one page. I know I ask for a lot. lol

[wd9]

Pretty simple one but effective:

http://canola.ab.ca/dailygrains.aspx

[charliep]

Interesting article in Ag Web today.

[URL="http://www.agweb.com/farmjournal/article/crop_inputs_for_2012/"]Farm Inputs for 2012[/URL]

[hobbyfrmr]

Anybody sell the canola for $10.50 yet? I thought that might get guys thinking about what prices are available. CharlieP already answered the big 3.
1.What is your cost of production? If you cant answer that one, then you are screwed and quit farming right now.

2. What was your yield this year?

3. How much profit do you need to farm next year?

Your yeild 30 bu/acre X price $11.00/bu will gross you $330/acre. If your cost of production was $300/acre, then you have a $30.00 per acre profit. If you had 500 acres of canola, that made you $15,000 profit.

Lots of guys around here have too much money. Still, to this day, they dilly dally talking about the high price of canola, then it drops, and by the time they can lock a price and get a b train in the yard, they have given up $0.80 - $1.20/bushel worth of profit.

If they make too much profit, that makes it a little easier to pay for fertilizer,chem, taxes, machinery and fuel, then what would they have to whine and complain about?

[charliep]

Here is a November 2012 Chart for discussion. Futures hanging around $510/tonne. $10.50/bu equals about $485/tonne if my math is right. You would need someone to offer a $25/tonne.

[URL="http://farms.com/FarmsPages/Markets/tabid/214/Default.aspx?page=chart&sym=RSX12"]November 2012[/URL]

[charliep]

$25/tonne under is basis.

[charliep]

Math even worse than I thought. $485 is about $11/bu. $10.50 would be a basis of $45 under.

[sumdumguy]

Our interest rates will likely be last to go up as
Canada would love a 80 cent dollar again.
European rates are jumping. Kinda looks a bit
like 1979, high oil, gold and land $1200 - $1500
then Poof! Cryin in the streets. Help the poor
babies!