Derek Squair has been Terry Aberhart's grain marketing coach since 2006. In this conversation, recorded in the middle of the 2021 drought, he explains what a market coach actually does: not predicting prices, but managing risk, setting budgets, and protecting cash flow so a bad year doesn't become a lost farm. He covers forward contracting risk, the sustainability premiums starting to reach producers, and where he sees carbon credit markets heading, then takes a round of unscripted questions producers sent in on Twitter, including one asking bluntly why anyone should keep paying for his services.
A market coach's job is not predicting where grain prices go. Derek Squair, who has coached Terry Aberhart's grain marketing since 2006, lays out what the job actually is: setting budgets, managing cash flow, and making sure a farm never gets so exposed to one contract that a bad year turns into a lost farm.
Recorded during the 2021 drought, with forward contracts turning into the single biggest risk on the table, Derek walks through what separates a farm that survives a brutal year from one that doesn't, then takes real, unfiltered questions from producers on Twitter.
What's Inside
- Why the job is optimizing, not maximizing, and what that distinction actually protects
- What separates a farm that survives a drought year from one that gets buried by its own forward contracts
- How act of god contracts and futures buybacks cover a farm when production falls short
- The sustainability premium already showing up in producers' pockets, and where Derek sees it going
- Carbon credits: what the regulatory and voluntary markets were paying, and where he expected that number to go
- A live Twitter Q&A where producers ask Derek to defend his own value, directly
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