Guest Farm Marketing Blog: Planning? We’re Talking About Planning?

Several years ago basketball star Allen Iverson was conducting an interview and was asked a question about a disagreement between himself and his coach regarding Iverson’s participation in practice. What followed was one of the most well-known sound bites in recent sports history, during which Iverson expressed his incredulousness at being asked about his performance at practice rather than analyzing his impact during the actual game.

It is an extreme example, but it echoes some of the reactions we receive from customers when suggesting that farm marketing planning is an essential step in achieving a profit and having a successful farm marketing season.

In many ways planning has suffered a setback over the last few years. Setting price targets ahead of time has left some customers with a bad taste in their mouth when prices have been higher around harvest. This has led some to believe that having a plan was the wrong idea; my perspective is that a marketing plan that is good when implemented is good regardless of whether inaction would have yielded better results.

This spring we have seen a large percentage of customers lamenting the prices for the Fall 2014 crop and, somewhat curiously, the relatively good state of the 2014 crop in the field. It seems strange to me that the current farm marketing plan of choice seems to be hoping for bad weather and poor crops in every area outside of your own fields.

There are no guarantees in marketing a crop, but we should all take the steps to understand what would be a successful marketing season. We would be happy to help you here at the elevator to find and utilize the tools necessary to achieve this goal.