Need Help Marketing? AgriEdge Can Help.
Nov 11, 2019
Marketing grain is one of the biggest struggles in farming. Many producers find it extremely difficult to know when and why to sell or contract their bushels. While we cannot control the market and its volatility, we can help with understanding why you should sell when it reaches a specific market price. This help comes in the form of an online database tool from Syngenta® called AgriEdge Excelsior®. Great Bend Co-op is a Certified AgriEdge Partner. We not only offer the program, but also the expertise to help you through the entire process from start to finish.
AgriEdge is a cloud-based database. It offers options for planning, application and record keeping, invoicing and report, and through it all, marketing. Let’s talk a little more about each of these aspects.
Planning – Within this tool, producers will enter their crops, broken down to fields and acres of each crop. Mapping within the tool creates a visual of farm layout. Once the crops are entered for the year, the producer and their agronomist can work together to build a crop plan for each crop and field. This plan includes everything from fertilizer and herbicide, to any other variable and fixed costs that may occur. Putting this information together in the fall of the year prior to the crop season, producers can utilize the information to make important purchasing decisions during the prepay season. Utilizing prepay purchasing and early orders, producers can save thousands of dollars on crop inputs.
Applications and Record Keeping – The plan you put together is like the playbook for the season. While weather and other variables may occur, you have a great base to start out the season. From the plan, work orders can be created. These may be used to take to the co-op to have a field sprayed or product applied, or they can be used in your own sprayer. This option helps keep the plan on track and reduces confusion by the applicator. Work Orders can then be converted to applications with completed information, including weather, for your records. As the number of specifically traited crops increases, record keeping will becoming increasingly more important.
Invoicing and Reporting – AgriEdge allows for invoices to be entered from your crop retail company. These invoiced dollars will associate back with the products applied and give you an average cost of each product across the season. Reporting is a major part of this tool. There are reports for just about everything, from total products applied throughout the season, to comparisons of planned input costs to actual input costs. There are also reports for landlords and FSA that can help reduce paperwork on the producer’s part.
Marketing – As stated above, during the planning process you are asked to enter variable and fixed costs to the best of your knowledge. During the season, you can get a feel for how close to those numbers the farm is sticking. Utilizing this knowledge, including your APH values, you can create a break-even scenario. Within the planning, this number is automatically generated upon entering expected yield and current market pricing. Consider your break even on the crop, and then add in the amount you will need to be able to put dollars back into the operation. Using this number, you now have the base price at which to market your grain in order to reach these goals. This helps you avoid making critical marking mistakes, like jumping in and selling too low because of intimidating volatility.
If you are interested in learning more about this tool offered by Great Bend Co-op, contact our Conservation Agronomy Specialist – Cammie Vaupel today.
AgriEdge is a cloud-based database. It offers options for planning, application and record keeping, invoicing and report, and through it all, marketing. Let’s talk a little more about each of these aspects.
Planning – Within this tool, producers will enter their crops, broken down to fields and acres of each crop. Mapping within the tool creates a visual of farm layout. Once the crops are entered for the year, the producer and their agronomist can work together to build a crop plan for each crop and field. This plan includes everything from fertilizer and herbicide, to any other variable and fixed costs that may occur. Putting this information together in the fall of the year prior to the crop season, producers can utilize the information to make important purchasing decisions during the prepay season. Utilizing prepay purchasing and early orders, producers can save thousands of dollars on crop inputs.
Applications and Record Keeping – The plan you put together is like the playbook for the season. While weather and other variables may occur, you have a great base to start out the season. From the plan, work orders can be created. These may be used to take to the co-op to have a field sprayed or product applied, or they can be used in your own sprayer. This option helps keep the plan on track and reduces confusion by the applicator. Work Orders can then be converted to applications with completed information, including weather, for your records. As the number of specifically traited crops increases, record keeping will becoming increasingly more important.
Invoicing and Reporting – AgriEdge allows for invoices to be entered from your crop retail company. These invoiced dollars will associate back with the products applied and give you an average cost of each product across the season. Reporting is a major part of this tool. There are reports for just about everything, from total products applied throughout the season, to comparisons of planned input costs to actual input costs. There are also reports for landlords and FSA that can help reduce paperwork on the producer’s part.
Marketing – As stated above, during the planning process you are asked to enter variable and fixed costs to the best of your knowledge. During the season, you can get a feel for how close to those numbers the farm is sticking. Utilizing this knowledge, including your APH values, you can create a break-even scenario. Within the planning, this number is automatically generated upon entering expected yield and current market pricing. Consider your break even on the crop, and then add in the amount you will need to be able to put dollars back into the operation. Using this number, you now have the base price at which to market your grain in order to reach these goals. This helps you avoid making critical marking mistakes, like jumping in and selling too low because of intimidating volatility.
If you are interested in learning more about this tool offered by Great Bend Co-op, contact our Conservation Agronomy Specialist – Cammie Vaupel today.