Commodity Conversations

This week, Rob is joined by Ally Jaffrey, Wool Area manager for Nutrien Ag Solutions based in Crookwell NSW. Ally plays a key role in the NSW SMBA Southern Tablelands flock ewe championship and joins us to discuss what farmers are getting out of the competition.  We learn how benchmarking, networking, and the sharing of knowledge are driving excellence in Wool.

This week Rob is joined by commodity conversations regular Michael Whitehead, Head of Agribusiness Insights at ANZ.  Michael talks us through some of the key insights from the ANZ Agri in focus autumn report. We cover the outlook for a number of commodities including the climate and cost trends for farmers, the impacts of Chinese demand, continued conflict, and Post COVID supply chain developments. 

In this episode, Robert Herrmann chats with Tom Breen, General Manager of Customer and Business services at Nutrien Ag Solutions about the future of Ag, innovation in farm finance and how farmers can take advantage of those opportunities – even if cashflow doesn’t permit.

This week Olivia is joined by Lucy Noble, Industry Analyst with Hort Innovation. We discuss some of the key drivers behind the significant growth in productivity and value in the horticulture industry achieved in the last decade.  We learn more about the latest iteration of the Horticulture statistics handbook, a comprehensive resource covering over 75 different commodities; and when can we expect some relief to potato supply? 

This week Rob is joined by Mark Tully - Market Research Manager at Nutrien, who is based in Calgary, Canada.  Mark shares his insight into the Fertiliser market and covers the volatility of 2022, and what we can expect in Nitrogen and Phosphate markets for 2023.

Agriculture is about production and people, and the difficulty in finding people to fill jobs in agriculture is one of the most common pain points. Rose Ferdinands and Dr Mike Stephens from Meridian Agriculture, join us to chat about the labour challenges, what new graduates are looking for and what we can do to promote the opportunities on offer in our sector. 

This week Rob is joined by Mark Barton, Livestock agent with Nutrien Ag Solutions, to discuss the growth of the Australian performance horse industry.  We cover the benefits of managing livestock from horseback to the history of performance horse sales in Australia. Mark has been instrumental in the success of one of the premier camp draft competitions and sales in Australia -The Nutrien Classic, where over $17 million of sale volume in high-performance horses was achieved this year. 

This week Rob & Olivia from Mecardo dive into the latest quarterly market insights report covering our core commodities. The team discusses bumper harvests, another record canola crop, geopolitical influences on the grain market, continued volatility in the cattle market, and the latest trends in lamb and wool markets.   

In 2022 the long-term trend of rising sheep meat value was broken. In this episode of Commodity Conversations, Rob catches up with Will Barton, CEO of Gundagai Meat Processors, to get his take on the market.  We’ll also hear his insights into the demand side of the equation, particularly with lamb export into the U.S market.

Welcome back! We're kicking the year with Jo Clarke Associate Editor of Argus. Today we follow on from a previous episode on managing risk with cattle swabs, discussing the Argus feeder steer indicator. We'll hear how the Argus Feeder Steer Indicator is calculated, how it's being used, how it can be used, and what other indicators Argus is exploring.

Join Rob Herrmann and Michael Whitehead, Head of Agribusiness Insights ANZ for part 2 of their discussion on the pathways to capturing opportunities in agriculture. In this episode, we're looking at the outlook for 2030 and mapping out the main areas in which we'll need to focus to reach our full potential as an industry. 

Join Rob Herrmann and Michael Whitehead, Head of Agribusiness Insights ANZ to discuss, off the back of ANZ's recently released report Greener Pastures Two, the opportunities we've seized over the decade and an outlook into 2030. We've broken this topic into two episodes. In this episode, we take a look back at how Australian agriculture has exceeded the forecast in terms of investment, product, and export as well as the lessons for success.

Nutrien Ag Solutions Regional Livestock Lead Adam Mountjoy and Livestock Development Manager Ron Rutledge join Olivia Agar and Rob Herrmann to give an update on the current situation in the livestock market, discuss what's driving prices down, and talk through some of the opportunities in the market. 

Farming regions have been challenged with relentless events outside of their control in the last years such as drought, bushfires, and floods. In this week's episode, Robert Herrmann catches up with Kris Nelson, General Manager of Insurance for Nutrien Ag Solutions to talk about what options there are for growers wanting to mitigate their risk, as well as how parametric weather insurance works.

On this episode, we check in with Andrew Hosken from Hosken Stock and Land, to hear how the season is impacting the supply of cattle, what he expects for this season's weaner sales in terms of supply and demand, and what insight we can take from the feeder cattle market.

It's that time of year when the lamb markets start to pick up the pace. Spring lamb supply is up and paired with constant wet weather, flooding, and public holidays the last few weeks have been enormous. In this episode, Robert Herrmann chats with Ron Rutledge about where we are today regarding the flow of lambs to market, what the road map is, and where opportunities can be found.

Off the back of our recent quarterly report, this week in Commodity Conversations, Olivia Agar and Robert Herrmann catch up to discuss the key trends and factors impacting our core commodity markets over the recent quarter.

Stewart is the Tasmanian state wool manager, with Nutrien Ag solutions, he’s worked nearly all over Australia, with 30 years’ experience as a wool classer, auctioneer and buyer. This week Stewart chats with Rob Herrmann about all things wool – from current price movements, export demand signals, shearing backlogs, Stewarts outlook for 2023 and more. 

While swap contracts have been a key part of grain trading in Australia for a long time there’s been no such option for cattle traders – until now. Tim Jude, livestock and commodities broker for Stonex  joins us this week to discuss the mechanics behind the new swap contracts, the wide range of businesses which can potentially benefit from it and how it’s being received in the industry so far.        

It’s a mixed bag of old and new season lambs hitting the yards this week and to help us navigate through the current sheep and lamb supply outlook we have Adam Mountjoy, Southeast regional wool & livestock  lead at Nutrien Ag Solutions with us. Adam’s insights from his travels around regional saleyards in south-east help make sense of the lamb supply story, processors managing the flow and opportunities in the market.