Reading Time: 4 minutes Neil Blue cut his grain-marketing teeth as a farmer in the bad ol’ ’80s. He had no choice. It was either that or rack up loss after loss. “Now the second and sometimes the third generation of farmers are learning about these things,” says Blue, today a marketing analyst with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry. “Some […] Read more
When good isn’t good enough
How do you go from good to great at marketing? With volatile years ahead, these five steps will help
Marketing crops in weather extremes
Other farmers use marketing to cut the weather’s impact on their farms. These farmers build on it
Reading Time: 8 minutes Across Canada, the late-summer reports were a wild mixture of good, bad and ugly. Crops seemed stellar in southeastern Manitoba, yet in parts of Alberta and Saskatchewan, late rains couldn’t undo earlier drought damage, while in Ontario, the outlook swung from excellent to poor based on late frosts and excess rain. In that context, Country […] Read more
More to grain marketing than price
Making your product available to customers is likely more important than price over the long-term
Reading Time: 6 minutes Correction: Mar. 6, 2015 – Without a doubt, the biggest fallacy about Canada’s grain producers is that they are good marketers. I would argue instead that few grain growers actually have real marketing expertise, and even fewer actually market what they produce. Grain producers who have spent many hours or days attending marketing groups, courses, […] Read more
Reading the basis
Of all the signals the market is always sending you, the clearest can be the basis. Here’s how to put that to better use in your farm’s 2015 marketing strategy
Reading Time: 7 minutes If there’s a market signal farmers obsess over, it’s the basis. Not only can it make the difference between profitability and red ink, it’s also set by your local grain buyers, so theoretically it’s the signal you should hear the loudest. But is the basis really well understood? Is it ever entirely clear why it’s […] Read more
Getting your crop marketing plan down on paper, and beyond
Why put your marketing plan on paper? Because it pays, no matter where the market goes
Reading Time: 9 minutes A military phrase jumps immediately to mind. Veteran soldiers often say that no battle plan ever survives its first brush with the enemy. On the farm, you might think it means that the time you’d put into laying out a marketing plan is time you could better spend on any of the thousand other things […] Read more
Federal funding pledged for crop market development work
Reading Time: 4 minutes Canadian crop commodity groups getting federal AgriMarketing funding plan to put the money to work over five years — not just in salesmanship, but in developing their crops’ story for potential customers. Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz made two five-year funding announcements during the CropSphere 2015 conference Tuesday and Wednesday in Saskatoon: over $3.3 million […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
