It’s time again for our ALCIVIA co-op talk all together in our communities helping to support wisconsin agriculture as well as our consumers. And I tell you what we’ve got a special guest with us today his name is Jim Dell he is the President and CEO of ALCIVIA. We’re pleased to have him along with us. Boy you know I’m glad I got to kind of sneak a few minutes with you Jim, I’ve got to believe that the pace around the office as well as out in the fields been pretty hectic for all of the ALCIVIA staff.

Yeah, thanks Pam for having me on and it’s been a you know off to a slow start in April with the spring season and then May got kicked into gear and we are full steam ahead at this point in time. Trying to get caught up and you know mother nature’s throwing a few things at us each day a little bit more wind than we’re used to but you know things are moving along. We want to thank all the patrons for their support, and we’ll keep putting the application product out there and moving forward.

Yeah, how did you do managing through the spring workload Jim? I know you and I had talked previously about the strategy within ALCIVIA to try to staff up and have everybody ready to go, how did the plan play out?

Well, you know surprisingly, we were able to pull enough folks together both locally here and we brought over H2A folks to work with us again this year about 60 of them in both trade territories. That’s been working out very well along with everything else, so we’ve come through it fairly well and I think our services have showed that we can uh we’re getting it done for our patrons.

That’s good, that’s good have you heard anything about supply chain issues Jim? I mean you guys can only be in charge and in control of so much. I know ALCIVIA tries to lay in a lot of product, but how are we looking from this point forward on things like fungicide, you know secondary weed catchers, how’s that looking?

Yeah, you know there had been certainly a lot of planting put in this winter in the spring to make sure we had enough product on hand and for sure there’s been some substitutions that have happened as we have not been able to secure 100 percent of everything we needed. But our customers were well educated and understanding, and we’ve been able to substitute and get through the season with different chemical combinations and it’s worked out pretty good. Thus far we’re staying ahead of the game so we’re pretty pleased with that.

Yeah, well you know we’re all optimistic I mean we take a look at the crops that we’ve got in the ground and then we take a look at the markets and boy Jim, I’ll tell you markets are presenting some decent opportunities when it comes to the 2022 crop. And 2023 you got a whole staff keeping an eye on that

Yeah, from a grain marketing standpoint you know we got some real opportunities, strong markets here obviously for 2022 should bode well for our customer base and you know just encourage our customers not to forget about next year and in the following year. As we can put on hedge to arrive contracts with them and get some of that locked in especially if they’re taking a look at locking in you know fall application as we’re trying to get that secured here the next few weeks, but you know the markets are strong they, seem to be a strong demand pull and there’s lots of areas that are going to need product.

You know west Texas is struggling a little bit right now and so that’s going to be in the U.S. market and then of course our export markets are strong as we speak as well. The flow of grains going to change a little bit as we move forward to hit some of those demand points and you know some of that is a result of some of the war things and different things like that geopolitically that are going on.

Yeah, right if you’re just joining us this is Jim Dell president and CEO of ALCIVIA. Let’s talk like you said about being proactive I think sometimes we’re a little hesitant to pull that trigger Jim, we’re one natural disaster away from seeing prices go up again. Your staff walks people through the process and helps them look at all their options, don’t they?

Yes, we do. You know how a person can easily get tentative with the higher fertilizer prices right now and I totally understand that. But as you look at combo-ing that with sales of grain, actually, the margin per acre is pretty decent and I think that’s really where we all need to keep our focus and work through.

You know not yet too hung up on the price per individual input, as we go through just how it impacts the overall cost per acre and then what’s the revenue per acre let’s not forget about that. We focus on costs a lot, but revenues are all oftentimes not focused on as much, but like you said they are the critical element.

Jim Dell along with us President CEO of ALCIVIA like he said try to be proactive folks as best you can if you’ve got a crop in the ground, how are you going to market it? If you’re planning on 2023, can you protect yourself in different ways? And of course, for all you consumers out there let’s think about our summer fill program and getting ourselves ready for winter months that believe it or not are just around the corner. You can take care of it all with our friends from ALCIVIA. Jim Dell president and CEO of ALCIVIA, along with us today on our ALCIVIA co-op talk