With over 600,000 subscribers to DTN and
its magazine PROGRESSIVE FARMER, this web-based
company has major market share in the
U. S. Midwest and south, and it is also has a
huge following across Canada of farmers who
live by its ag weather and market reports.
Even so, DTN is more than an ag company.
Based in Omaha, Nebraska, it is also a major
force in the fuels, aviation, construction and
transportation industries, to name only a few.
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For Internet grain sales, that fuel connection
has proved a major competitive
advantage, providing a template for farm
marketing.
Five years ago, DTN broke new ground
with DTN Marketspace, the first website in
the U. S. (and likely the world) to facilitate
online cash grain trades.
DTN already had experience operating
an exchange platform for wholesale buying
of petroleum products in its other vertical
markets, says Tamara Kass, DTN director of
agriculture products. We ve just extended
our services to allow farmers and agribusiness
to use it as another business tool.
Originally, DTN added the service to
attract agribusinesses that wanted not only
to manage grain origination online but also
to contact more farmers more efficiently than
they d ever been able to reach before. That s
why it s fundamentally an offer-driven service
replacing the outbound calling tree the companies
used in the past.
As the service has grown, however, other
attributes have also become critical. In
markets that have become so volatile, Kass
points especially to the fact that the service
is secure, private, immediate and available
24 hours a day.
Moreover, this system produces an electronic
trail of the transaction. Merchants and
producers know exactly what they ve traded at
exactly what time. It s all documented so both
sides know all the details. Once agreed, an
