Category: Crop Marketing

Every January, there is talk of New Year’s resolutions—a time to commit to improvements and set new goals. While health and personal finance often top the list of resolutions, there is no reason not to think about the farm business and marketing commitments in the same way. Farm profitability depends on effective management across many areas. Producers devote significant time and effort to decisions that affect crop production, but just as important is having a marketing plan for how the crop will be sold. Marketing is a continuous process that can span multiple production years, but it should be revisited for possible updating. With a solid marketing plan, producers can approach selling their crop as a year-round process rather than a single decision at one point in the year. This article highlights key considerations for developing a successful marketing strategy. 

First, it is important to understand what a marketing plan is not. It is not a one-time silver bullet that guarantees sales at the highest price. While some producers may ‘beat’ the market in certain years, few can do so consistently. Commodity prices reflect supply and demand fundamentals, but in the short run, they are influenced by unpredictable events and new information. Even long-term outlooks are subject to shocks such as trade wars or other geopolitical developments. Expecting a marketing plan to always capture the top of the market sets up unrealistic goals. Instead, the value of a marketing plan lies in its ability to manage risk through consistent, disciplined decisions.

Every marketing plan should be anchored in the farm’s business goals. Those goals set the operation’s risk tolerance, cash-flow needs, and planning horizon. A producer nearing retirement may prioritize capital preservation, while a younger producer focused on growth may accept more price variability to preserve upside and liquidity. The plan should explicitly tie tactics to goals and assess which risks (price, basis, yield, liquidity, etc.) would most threaten those goals. In short, the marketing plan should serve the business plan, not the other way around.

Cost of production is the foundation of any marketing plan. Without a current, credible breakeven, you can’t judge whether a sale protects margin. Prices are volatile and mostly outside the producer’s control, so the most reliable gains come from managing inputs and operating efficiently. A sound approach is to build price objectives directly from breakeven, setting a minimum price that locks in a base margin.  Additional targets can then be layered at predefined margin levels (for example, breakeven + $0.20 and + $0.40) based on the farm’s goals and cash-flow needs. 

Marketing plans are most effective when they encourage proactive, rather than reactive, sales. Often, the worst sale is a forced sale, such as selling grain at harvest due to limited storage or pulling grain from the bin to meet a loan payment. Coordinating decision dates with price targets allows sales to be spread throughout the year. Crop markets frequently show seasonal strength in spring and early summer, making that window a natural fit for higher targets. Extending the marketing window, considering preharvest sales within the operation’s risk tolerance, and using crop insurance to backstop commitments can all help create more opportunities to lock in margin. Maintaining strong relationships with local buyers can also expand contract options and delivery flexibility.

Finally, it is essential to document the reasoning behind every marketing decision. A simple decision log noting the trigger, target price, quantity, tool, and rationale can reinforce discipline when action is required. The biggest threats to good marketing decisions are emotion, fear of making a mistake, and the temptation to hold out for just a little more. If a sale aligns with business goals and protects margin above breakeven, it is a sound decision, even if prices later move higher. Long-term success comes from steady, margin-protecting progress, not perfection on every sale. Now is an excellent time to make a New Year’s resolution for the farm by committing to a clear, disciplined marketing strategy for 2026 and beyond.

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Maples, Will. “A New Year, A Better Marketing Plan for the Farm.” Southern Ag Today 6(2.3). January 7, 2026. Permalink

From October 1, 2025, to November 12, 2025, the U.S. federal government was largely shut down until a congressional stalemate was resolved involving appropriations legislation. The 43-day duration of this shutdown was unprecedented, but some of its effects are taking even longer to resolve.

The agricultural marketing implications of the federal shutdown included the suspension of important public agricultural data, especially near term (i.e., weekly) data.  Such data are important for characterizing near term influences on cotton prices.  For example, the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) publishes a weekly export sales report for cotton (and other row crops) which serves as a useful indicator of export demand.  As displayed in Figure 1, cotton weekly export sales in relation to nearby ICE cotton futures are helpful in explaining or predicting export quantities demanded.  

USDA FAS weekly export sales reports resumed on November 13, but export data picked up where it left off (i.e., for September 18).  Even with issuing semi-weekly reports to catch up, the normal one-week lag schedule won’t be achieved until January 8, 2026.  The one-week lag schedule has the most value as a current demand indicator.  But instead of a 43-day delay, we are really dealing with a 112-day delay (September 18 to January 8) until a full return to normal reporting.  Thus for over a hundred days, the only market participants with knowledge of the current export demand picture were the merchandizers.

 For another example, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) publishes weekly “Commitment of Traders” (COT) data on the positions of index funds and hedge funds in agricultural futures markets (Figure 2).  The changes in these speculative futures positions have near term value in explaining fluctuations in ICE cotton futures.  Like the cotton export sales data, the COT data have little explanatory power outside of a week old.

The 2025 Commitment of Traders (COT) report schedule saw significant revisions due to the federal funding lapse, leading to catch-up publications throughout the end of 2025.  Reports for late October and November 2025 were pushed to December 2025, with the CFTC increasing frequency until a return to the normal reporting schedule on December 29, 2025.  Beyond the direct shutdown (7 to 8 weeks) the CFTC near term publication schedule won’t be fully restored until after a 17-week period.

Thus, the disruption of valuable near-term cotton marketing data flow has been quite long, but as we enter the new year, we are finally back to a normal reporting period.

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Robinson, John. “An End to the Disruption of Two Key Weekly Federal Crop Reports.” Southern Ag Today 5(53.3). December 31, 2025. Permalink

Authors: Will Maples; Mississippi State University; Grant Gardner; University of Kentucky

As the calendar year comes to a close, U.S. soybean exports remain one of the more disappointing components of the soybean balance sheet. USDA currently projects soybean exports at 1.635 billion bushels, down 13 percent from last year. This weakness has been evident throughout the marketing year, with export commitments consistently running below historical norms and showing little of the typical seasonal acceleration.

Figure 1 shows that U.S. soybean export commitments for the 2025-2026 marketing year have consistently trailed historical benchmarks. Commitments remained near the bottom of the five-year range through the winter and spring, reflecting limited early-season booking activity. Although export sales began to improve in late summer and early fall, the pace remains well below both the five-year average and USDA pace targets. Historically, roughly 70 percent of total soybean export commitments are in place by this point in the marketing year. Based on the five-year average pace, the U.S. would need approximately 30.9 million metric tons of commitments to meet USDA’s export projection. Currently, commitments total just 21.8 million metric tons, highlighting the substantial gap that remains.

The largest wildcard for U.S. soybean exports is China. Historically, China has been the single largest buyer of U.S. soybeans, accounting for 25% of U.S. soybean production (Gardner, 2025). However, Chinese purchases effectively halted last spring following the onset of the trade war. After the U.S. and China reached a trade agreement in October, China resumed soybean purchases. Under the agreement, China committed to purchase at least 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans in 2025, with an additional 25 million metric tons to be purchased in each of the following three years. Putting these numbers in perspective, 12 million metric tons account for 10% of U.S. soybean production this year.  

Initially, the 2025 commitment was expected to be met by the end of the calendar year, though the timeline has since become less clear, with the administration later indicating the target could be reached by the end of February. Regardless of the exact deadline, progress to date suggests the original target will not be met by year-end. For the export report ending November 27, USDA reports China had purchased 3.0 million metric tons of soybeans. While recent announcements of additional sales to China suggest this figure is now higher than officially reported, purchases remain well short of trade deal commitments.

Despite the Chinese trade agreement, questions remain about the economic feasibility of large-scale Chinese purchases of U.S. soybeans relative to Brazilian soybeans. China has already sourced a substantial volume of soybeans from South America, and overall import demand is likely to remain limited regardless of trade commitments. With USDA projecting another increase in Brazilian soybean production, U.S. soybeans will likely remain trading at a premium to Brazil.

The lag in exports creates downside risk for producers with unpriced soybeans in storage if marketing decisions are based solely on the expectation of a late-season surge in Chinese purchases. Rather than relying on a potential export-driven price rally, producers should consider establishing price floors or incorporating other risk management strategies to protect against continued export weakness. As producers consider marketing old-crop soybeans for 2026 delivery, price recovery remains uncertain. Periodic sales at or above breakeven can help mitigate downside price risk, particularly if export demand continues to lag.

Figure 1. U.S. Total Soybean Export Commitments for 2025-2026 Marketing Year Compared to Previous Five Years (2020-2024)

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Sources: 

Gardner, Grant. “Major Players in US Trade and Grain Market Volatility.” Southern Ag Today 5(15.3). April 9, 2025. Permalink

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Maples, William E., and Grant Gardner. “Soybean Exports Continue to Lag.” Southern Ag Today 5(52.3). December 24, 2025. Permalink

The world wheat situation for the 2025 crop was dominated by overall favorable growing conditions.  According to the December 2025 USDA World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE), world wheat production continued a long-term increasing trend, reaching a record of 837.81 million metric tons, about 31 billion bushels.  In the U.S., the average wheat yield for the 2025 crop also continued a long-term increasing trend to a record high 53.3 bushels per acre, beating the old record of 52.7 bushels in 2016.  

With record production and yield, what do supply and demand fundamentals in the wheat market portend for price expectations in 2026?  

For the U.S., wheat planted area has levelled off over the last few years to around 45 million acres. Last winter was under the influence of an El Niño weather pattern, generally associated with cooler temperatures and above normal precipitation in the Southern Plains (2016 was an El Niño year, too). The forecast for the winter of 2026 is for La Niña conditions to be present. La Niña winters are generally warmer and drier than normal. That is not a favorable forecast for above normal yields. With little change in acreage, the U.S. wheat crop in 2026 is likely to be smaller than 2025.

U.S. wheat domestic use is little changed over the last 20 years (Figure 1). Food use is right around 950 million bushels per year, varying no more than 59 million bushels since 2005/2006.   Wheat for feed averages about 135 million bushels per year. The high in feed use (360 million bushels) came in 2012 with the major drought in the Corn Belt. 

Figure 1. U.S. Wheat Use

That leaves exports. On average, exports and food use are about even over the last 20 years, but the range in exports is much more variable, from a high of 1.3 billion bushels to a low of 707 million.  There is significant competition in the export market for wheat, even though the U.S. is one of the top exporters in the world (Figure 2).   

Figure 2. World Wheat Exports

World consumption and production outside of the major exporting countries (Argentina, Australia, European Union, Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S.) shows a production deficit every year since 1990 (Figure 3). That deficit has widened from about 70 million metric tons per year in the early 1990s to more than double, averaging over 160 million metric tons the last three years. The rate of deficit is increasing by about 3 million metric tons per year, providing a need for imports to those areas. 

Figure 3. Production and Domestic Consumption of Wheat: world less major exporters

The price outlook for wheat in 2026 looks better than 2025 based on what will likely be a smaller U.S. wheat crop. But the real question will be production levels globally, especially among our major export competitors. Meanwhile, consumption of wheat is strong.  In 1990, the population in countries outside Argentina, Australia, the EU, Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S. represented 82% of the population total (IMF, 2025), and per capita consumption of wheat in these ‘rest of the world’ countries was 75.6 kilograms per person year. In 2025, the population share of these ‘rest of the world’ countries increased to 87% of global population, and per capita consumption increased to 85.6 kilograms per person per year. The world is hungry for wheat.

References

International Monetary Fund. IMF Datamapper, accessed December 12, 2025, https://www.imf.org/en/home.  

USDA, Foreign Agricultural Service, PSD, accessed December 10, 2025.

USDA, Office of the Chief Economist, World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, December 2025. 

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Welch, Mark. “2026 Wheat Outlook.” Southern Ag Today 5(51.3). December 17, 2025. Permalink

On the evening of November 27, 2025, the CME’s electronic trading system had a major outage. Trading in corn and soybean futures stopped and then came back before the market opened the next morning. Many farmers and merchandisers wondered whether the first hour after the market reopened looked normal or if it showed signs of stress.This article uses one-minute price and volume data to describe what happened during the first hour of trading on Friday, November 28, 2025.

To understand whether the morning after the outage was unusual, I compared one-minute futures data for the first hour (after the 8:30 a.m. Central Time open) on November 28 against similar data for two simple benchmarks: (i) the previous ten trading days in 2025, and (ii) all trading days in 2025. For each comparison, I looked at how much futures contract prices moved minute-to-minute and how many contracts traded in that hour. For each day, I focused on the main contract with the most trading volume during the daytime session.

For corn, the first hour after the CME came back was far from normal. Table1 summarizes how large the first hour was compared with a typical morning. Compared with the previous ten trading days, the amount of price movement was a little more than five times larger than usual, and the total up-and-down movement over the hour was more than three times larger. Trading volume during that first hour was almost nine times the recent ten-day norm. Even when compared with all trading days in 2025, corn still shows very large numbers: more than three times the usual price movement and about ten times the usual first-hour volume. These findings match what many people felt in real time. The market did not simply return to normal after the outage. Corn, in particular, showed the kind of price swings and volume that look more like a stress event than a routine morning. Soybeans also showed more activity than usual, but the increase was not as dramatic as in corn. Compared with the previous ten trading days, soybean price movement was a little under three times the recent median, and volume was just under three times. Against the full 2025 distribution, soybean price movement was a little more than four times the median, and volume was about five times. Soybeans were active, but they did not spike as sharply as corn.

For farmers, merchandisers, and elevators, there are a few practical lessons when a technical problem occurs the night before the market opens. The first hour can be the most unstable time of the day when orders that could not be processed during the outage may all come in at once when trading resumes. That argues for extra caution with large orders right at or just after the open on such days. 

Finally, this type of simple analysis, checking how big the first hour is compared with recent days and the full year, can be a useful monitoring tool. Co-ops and elevators could use similar checks to decide when to widen quotes, slow down hedging, or adjust risk limits when the market appears unusually active.

Table 1: How Big Was the First Hour After the CME Outage?

Corn	Last 10 trading days	about 5.4×	about 3.2×	about 8.9×
Corn	All 2025 trading days	about 3.5×	about 2.3×	about 10.1×
Soybeans	Last 10 trading days	about 2.8×	about 2.0×	about 2.8×
Soybeans	All 2025 trading days	about 4.3×	about 2.3×	about 4.8×

* “First-hour price movement” measures how much prices bounced around minute-to-minute in the first 60 minutes.
** “First-hour total price movement” adds up all the ups and downs during that hour.

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^[1] Eunchun Park is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness / Fryar Price Risk Management Center of Excellence at the University of Arkansas