My Venezuela experience as head of trading in the region for Cargill. Cargill was/is the leading producer of critical staple ingredients such as flour, pasta, vegetable oil, and rice in VZ. I am not saying I agree with grabbing the dictator, but I did have a front row seat to the damage a kleptocracy did to innocent people. 1. The government took over our "minute rice" facility at gunpoint because we were "gouging" the nation's poor. The government was never able to run the plant. It never ran again. It was returned years later with no equipment inside 2. There are 1000's of generals in the army. They are each given a slice of the economy to loot. The large number of generals made it difficult to organize a coup against the regime. 3. The government opened grocery stores and sold staples below the cost we sold them to the government. In theory they used petro oil money to lower grocery prices. Our regular grocery outlets were forced out of business. When the government demanded we sell them products below cost we simply had to shut down. The populous became ever more dependent on the government handouts. (PS this is the mayor of New York City's proposal. 4. Dollars- We needed dollars to go buy raw materials like wheat from places like the US and Canada. The government would periodically allocate us some dollars that could only be spent for raw materials and freight. Eventually only the local companies that can and would pay bribes got dollar allocations. We had several facilities closed for lack of raw material 5. My employees liked working for Cargill. The office was an armed compound with access to a gym, high speed internet, global communications, and a weekly box of basic staples. Cargill provided a safe and secure environment if only for the working hours. 6. Employees became very close to others inside the apartment building. Going out on the street with a desperate population was not advisable. 7. I needed wood pallets for feed. We tried to export wood pallets to swap for grain. We refused to pay the bribes it would take to export the pallets 8. I once tried to set up a closed loop wheat planting to flour mill supply chain. A. They came and stole all the seed wheat for food. When we tried to ship in seed wheat in containers via US donors there was no way to get it out of the port without it being stolen 9. Livestock- Our feed business completely collapsed. Even if you could raise a pig, you couldn't defend it from being stolen. People with guns were hungry. 10. Employees- In the end my highly skilled team alone with other highly educated people chose to leave. Cargill often found jobs for them in other Latin countries. The regime was more than happy to see the well-educated leave the country. Setting these employees up with high quality stable jobs after fleeing remains one of the best things I ever did in my career. No one remembers millions in trading earnings. This is a short list. In my opinion the first money spent needs to happen now and it needs to be food. The US is already on the clock. The current regime does not care if it starves the population. The orgy of theft will actually accelerate if they believe their days are numbered. VZ should be an outstanding customer of US grown ag products. Rice, bread wheat, veg oil ect. Feed the people first. Jeff Kazin Former head trading Cargill

Why I would never speculate in cattle.... Confessions of a washed-up trader. 1. The goal of the exchange is to have a contract that represents the long and the short evenly. (the exchange wants everyone to trade early and often) 2. The cattle markets have too few legitimate end users to provide sufficient market discovery. Call it 4 in cattle and 10,000 in corn. (made the second one up) 3. The reduced number of long participants makes the market vulnerable to manipulation legal (signaling) and illegal (collusion). 4. The consolidated end users generate SIGNIFICANT proprietary information from physical operations. (They can legally trade that information at the peril of other participants.) 5. Changes in the physical operations in an individual end user can influence the market. (making your own weather) Would I use these markets to hedge physical risk. Sure, with some reasonable caution. Would I choose this market to speculate. Your odds might be better in Vegas. Jeff

Struggling how to make a profit in corn or wheat this year. Try this one best practice!!! Grab a pencil and write it down just once. Just paper and a writing stick one time. Separate you farming operation from your grain elevator business. Thats it.. That one best practice will radically improve your marketing. You will overcome psychological challenges. Your execution will improve. You will squeeze money out of your crop like a Cargill merchant. Most farmers own or have access to bins, legs, trucks ect. You are an elevator owner by default. Your farming operation manages futures risk through harvest. Once the grain is harvested the elevator business takes over. You then merchandise that grain like a professional. Need some skills in merchandising? I know two guys that produced a 1 day course video you can buy for cheap. :) Example for tonight: No this is not advice so don't run off to the FTC. Teaching tool only. I sell 4.04 December Futures as the manager of the farm. (yah I know it sucks but lets get on with dealing with the issue at hand.) My current basis is -40Z for harvest. Flat cash corn $3.64 My farm elevator takes over. 1. Eventually rolling Dec/March 22 cents and March/May 10 cents. 32 cents in futures carry 2. I expect basis to rise from -.40Z to -.05 May for April delivery. 35 cents in basis carry 3. My ON FARM storage expenses from Nov 1 of 25 to through April of 2026 are 3 cents per month. Interest, storage, shrink, variable. Call it 18 cents for 6 months. Math +32 Board carry +35 Basis appreciation -18 Cost of on farm carry ---- +49 cents carry earnings or 3.64+49=4.13 cash or 49cents X200bushels/acres= $98/acre or 4.13 X 200 bushels/acre $826 gross If you figure 400/acre non land cost that gives you $426 dollars to pay the land rent and buy Christmas gifts. If you tell me your land rent is $500/acre I bet your yield is more like 250 bushels... This isn't champaign and bond girls Farmer007 it is grinding in a tough environment. If you want to learn the merchant skills, you need to take the class. The buyers don't want you to know this material and the universities are incapable. We teach it starting a zero and go to Master Level. If you're not sure you want to commit that much time watch the 1-day workshop we filmed from the Hefty Morton Center this past winter. You can even watch on 1.5 speed and learn from two guys that sound like Micky Mouse. Gripping about the Pro Farmer Tour isn't going to change things. Getting educated for life will make a difference. Focus on the thing you can control. Jeff