Minding Ag's Business         01/28 07:04

   Grain Marketing Resolutions to Make It Through 'Weird' Years

   Commodities brokers advise farmers to develop disciplined grain marketing 
plans based on production costs, stick to price targets, seek professional 
guidance and utilize futures and options for effective risk management.

Katie Micik Dehlinger
Progressive Farmer Editor-in-Chief

   Andrew Mages said half of his job as a commodities broker with Progressive 
Ag is being a psychiatrist, helping farmers navigate the emotions of grain 
marketing and the fear of missing out.

   "Farmers actually have very good instincts," he said. "Sometimes, they just 
need an extra push."

   As far as grain marketing goes, 2025 was a weird year. Corn and soybean 
prices hit their highs in February, bucking seasonal trends for late-spring or 
early-summer rallies, leaving many farmers with more unpriced grain than they'd 
like as they headed into a new calendar year.

   Compounding the problem is that post-COVID price spikes rewarded 
laissez-faire marketers, and farmers have struggled to get back into a 
disciplined grain sales strategy as the market shifted.

   "Those tops last for seconds, but the bottoms last for years," said Mages, 
who also runs the family farm in Minnesota.

   As we turned the calendar to a new year and tallied the bushels in 
inventory, it's a great time to reevaluate your grain marketing strategy.

   HAVE A PLAN

   "There's no one-size-fits-all marketing plan," said AgMarket.Net CFO Tyler 
Schau, who taught grain marketing for 12 years.

   The first step is to determine your price and time action points based on 
your operation's cost of production and cash-flow needs. Then, you need to have 
an idea of what tools -- cash contracts, futures or options -- you'll use to 
secure your price.

   "You can make a marketing plan really complicated, or you can keep it pretty 
simple," Schau explained.

   STICK TO IT

   Sticking to the plan is the hard part. By the time a price target rolls 
around, market sentiment has usually changed, and farmers wonder if they set 
their sights too low. "Second-guessing is where farmers struggle the most," he 
said.

   The first sale is always the toughest, because most farmers are hoping for 
something better, Mages said. "Take a small win on your first sale, and it'll 
make your marketing plan a lot easier for the rest of the year," he suggested. 
"You want to hit a lot of singles and doubles when you're marketing."

   ASK FOR HELP

   Both Mages and Schau agreed having a trusted adviser can be a very helpful 
resource to guide you in both sticking to your plan and adapting it as the 
market changes.

   "Everybody's got an agronomist," Mages said. "So, why don't most farmers do 
that with a marketing plan? Farmers love growing a crop, but they hate 
marketing. So, get some help."

   DON'T FEAR FUTURES AND OPTIONS

   Schau and Mages said they're valuable tools in an oversupplied grain market 
like this one. Even if you need to sell physical grain below your target price 
to meet your cash-flow needs, re-owning those bushels through futures or 
options can create an opportunity to improve that price in the future.

   Mages said farmers may have been burned by margin calls or options expiring 
worthless in the past, but these tools give them more control than marketing 
alternatives from their local elevator, such as free delayed-price contracts. 
Those allow farmers to deliver the bushels but set the price at some point in 
the future.

   "When you have a futures and options account, it opens up a lot more 
strategies to help you remove risk," Schau said.

   Katie Dehlinger can be reached at katie.dehlinger@dtn.com

   Follow her on social platform X @KatieD_DTN




(c) Copyright 2026 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved.