Table of contents

    1. Seven Steps to Better Marketing
    2. Understanding supply factors for agricultural products
    3. How demand and supply determine market price
    4. How exchange rates affect agricultural markets
    5. How interest rates affect agricultural markets
    6. How to use charting to analyse commodity markets
    7. Agriculture marketing clubs
    8. Commodity futures markets
    1. Economics and Marketing – Choosing a Commodity Broker
    2. Margin on futures contracts
    3. Options on futures – an introduction
    4. Using hedging to protect farm product prices
    5. Canola futures contract
    1. Introduction to crop marketing
    2. Basis – How cash grain prices are established
    3. Grain marketing decision grid
    4. Price pooling – How it works
    5. Crop contracts
    6. Grain storage as a marketing strategy
    7. Using producer cars to ship prairie grain
    8. Using frequency charts for marketing decisions
    9. Western Canadian grain catchment
    10. Barley and wheat marketing resources
    11. Wheat basis levels
    12. Wheat quality and protein matters
    13. Wheat pricing considerations
    14. Marketing oats in Canada
    15. US Crops – Where Are They Grown?
    1. Introduction to livestock marketing
    2. Understanding and using basis levels in cattle markets
    3. Forward contracting of cattle
    4. Understanding dressing percentage of slaughter cattle
    5. Understanding the cattle market sliding scale
    6. Predicting feeder cattle prices
    7. Breakeven analysis for feeder cattle
    8. Farm gate values for farm-raised vs purchased calves
    9. Wool marketing in Canada
    10. Marketing feeder lambs
    1. Turf and forage seed trade companies active in the Peace Region
    2. History of creeping red fescue production in the Peace River Region
    3. Alfalfa seed marketing in Canada
    4. Forage seed marketing
    5. Marketing creeping red fescue
    6. Faba bean
    7. Marketing compressed hay
    1. Agricultural Marketing Glossary – A, B
    2. Agricultural Marketing Glossary – C
    3. Agricultural Marketing Glossary – D, E
    4. Agricultural Marketing Glossary – F, G
    5. Agricultural Marketing Glossary – H, I, J, K
    6. Agricultural Marketing Glossary – L, M
    7. Agricultural Marketing Glossary – N, O
    8. Agricultural Marketing Glossary – P, Q, R
    9. Agricultural Marketing Glossary – S
    10. Agricultural Marketing Glossary – T, U
    11. Agricultural Marketing Glossary – V, W
    12. Other Marketing Related Glossaries

Introduction

Strong marketing skills are important for a successful farm, and a decision grid can help you make grain-marketing decisions.

The best way to make solid grain marketing decisions is by keeping informed. Having a marketing plan with reasonable profit targets means you can capitalize on marketing opportunities when they arise.

For an introduction to the topic, see the video Developing a marketing plan for your crops.

Why use a decision grid

Farmers are faced with more pricing and marketing alternatives than ever before. Should they price at the current bid for immediate delivery? Hedge? Forward contract? Lock in basis? There are many alternatives available; properly used, they can help manage price risk. However, farmers must know when and how to use each one.

There are a considerable number of pricing and delivery alternatives for marketing crops. Farmers must assess all of these marketing alternatives to make sound crop marketing decisions. Marketing alternatives and signals may be different when making marketing decisions about binned crop, where you have full information, and crop that is still growing in the field, where there is still uncertainty about yield, quality and grade.

This marketing decision process can be applied to all crops that use futures markets for price discovery.

The decision grid

The decision grid helps to analyze prices and breaks these prices down to their component parts – futures and basis.

The futures price is the price that is traded on futures markets. A strong futures price is one that is high or higher than expected under current circumstances. This does not mean the futures price is at or above historical highs.

The basis is the difference between a local cash price and a futures price. Note that “local” could refer to your usual crop marketing area or a larger area. A strong basis means that the cash price is considered as high relative to the futures market price. This usually means local supplies are limited or that local demand is strong. A weak basis means the cash price is considered low relative to the futures market. This signals weakening local demand or oversupply in the local market.

As marketers develop experience over time, they are able to determine what are historically strong or weak futures prices and basis levels. This decision grid can be used to choose your marketing tools based on what you expect to happen with the futures price and basis.

Decision grid scenarios

Figure 1. Market decision quadrants

Quadrants showing the market decision grid.

Strong futures, weak basis

This is a signal to take action on the strong futures price and to wait for better basis. One way to do this is to sell deferred futures and store your grain. A second way to do this is to buy a put option, which sets a minimum price at which you may price your grain. A premium is paid to purchase a put option, but it provides protection from futures price downside while enabling you to capture higher prices should the futures price rise.

Strong futures, strong basis

This is a signal to price cash grain or sign a deferred delivery contract to lock in both the good basis and futures price.

Weak futures, weak basis

This scenario often occurs right after harvest, when many farmers are looking to sell and storage may be filling up. This is a signal to store your grain and watch the markets for opportunities. Wait for basis or futures price to improve.

Weak futures, strong basis

If futures prices are lower than expected, but local buyers still want deliveries, basis may be strong. A good approach here is to sell your grain at current cash prices to take advantage of the strong basis. While pricing physical grain you could purchase futures or call options to take advantage of any rally in the futures price. Alternatively, you could sign a basis contract to lock in just the favourable basis. Finally, waiting on the market to give a clearer signal is always an alternative.

Summary

They key to making solid grain marketing decisions is keeping informed. Having a marketing plan with reasonable profit targets and understanding your marketing alternatives means you can capitalize on marketing opportunities when they arise.

Related

Introduction to crop marketing

Open market crop contracts

Basis – how cash grain prices are established

Using hedging to protect farm product prices

Grain storage as a marketing strategy

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