The Grain Marketing Skills Farmers Are Missing
The Hidden Profit Opportunity After Harvest
Farmers spend countless hours trying to squeeze another five bushels out of every acre. But what if one of the biggest opportunities to improve farm profitability happens after the crop leaves the field?
Mike Rolfsen and Jeff Kazin, co-founders of Agris Academy, return to Farm4Profit to explain why better grain merchandising—not predicting the market—could be one of the most overlooked opportunities on the farm.
With decades of experience trading commodities and managing physical grain businesses at Cargill, Mike and Jeff have seen firsthand how professional grain companies approach risk, logistics, storage, basis, and negotiations.
And their approach looks very different from the way many farmers traditionally market grain.
Grain Marketing Isn't About Predicting Prices
One of the biggest misconceptions in grain marketing is that success requires knowing where prices are headed.
Mike and Jeff argue that professional grain companies don't build their businesses around predicting the market. Instead, they focus on managing risk.
There's also an important distinction between hedging and speculation.
Hedging is designed to reduce risk. Speculation intentionally takes on risk in hopes of generating a return.
For farmers, understanding that difference can completely change the way marketing decisions are made.
Instead of trying to outguess the futures market, producers can focus on the parts of merchandising they can actually control.
What Professional Grain Merchandisers Actually Do
Working inside one of the world's largest grain companies gave Mike and Jeff a unique perspective on how grain businesses generate profits.
While outsiders might picture commodity traders constantly buying and selling futures contracts, much of the real work happens elsewhere.
Professional merchandisers spend enormous amounts of time managing physical grain movement, transportation, logistics, basis opportunities, storage, negotiations, and operational details.
Individually, those decisions may seem small.
Together, they can create significant value.
That's the mindset Mike and Jeff want farmers to bring back to their own operations.
Building a "Knowledge Asset" on the Farm
Mike and Jeff founded Agris Academy to teach producers the grain merchandising skills they believe are often missing from traditional agricultural education.
Rather than operating as a brokerage or advisory service, Agris Academy focuses on education.
Farmers learn the mechanics behind topics including:
Basis
Carry
Hedging
Storage economics
Negotiation
Margin calls
Risk management
Marketing discipline
Mike and Jeff describe that education as creating a "knowledge asset."
Farmers regularly invest in assets like land, machinery, grain bins, and buildings. But knowledge can also create long-term value for an operation.
Once merchandising skills are developed, they can be used year after year and eventually passed to the next generation.
Should You Build Another Grain Bin?
The conversation also tackles one of the biggest capital investments on many farms: grain storage.
Permanent grain bins have historically played an important role in giving producers more control over when and where grain is sold.
But the economics have changed.
Higher construction costs have forced farmers to look more closely at the return on investment of additional permanent storage. Some larger operations are also turning to grain bags as a more flexible storage option.
Mike and Jeff explain why the decision shouldn't simply be about having somewhere to put grain.
Producers need to understand carry, basis, storage costs, interest, logistics, and opportunity costs to determine whether storing grain actually creates value.
Their advice is to start thinking about on-farm storage more like a commercial elevator would.
Your Breakeven Doesn't Control the Futures Market
Knowing your cost of production is essential for managing a farm business.
But there's one problem when it comes to marketing:
The futures market doesn't care what it cost you to grow the crop.
Your breakeven doesn't determine where corn or soybean futures trade.
That's why Mike and Jeff encourage farmers to separate farm financial management from market speculation.
Knowing your costs helps determine the financial risk your operation can tolerate. But successful merchandising also requires understanding the opportunities available through basis, carry, storage, logistics, and risk management.
Every farm is different.
That means your marketing strategy should be built around your own financial situation rather than simply copying what another farmer, analyst, or advisor is doing.
Document Your Grain Marketing Decisions
Another simple strategy discussed in the episode is documenting marketing decisions.
Write down:
What decision you made
Why you made it
What information you had at the time
What risk you were trying to manage
What happened afterward
The goal isn't to prove whether a decision was "right" or "wrong."
It's to develop discipline.
Over time, documenting decisions can help producers identify patterns, learn from previous marketing choices, and build confidence in their process.
Negotiation Is a Farm Skill
Mike and Jeff also discuss an area of grain marketing that often receives far less attention than futures prices: negotiation.
Understanding your local market, asking better questions, comparing opportunities, and knowing where grain buyers may have flexibility can potentially create additional value without changing anything about crop production.
Those skills improve through repetition.
The same is true for grain marketing overall.
Instead of making large speculative bets, Mike and Jeff encourage producers to build confidence through education, repetition, and smaller decisions.
Think Like an Elevator
Ultimately, the episode challenges farmers to rethink what happens after harvest.
Growing more bushels will always matter.
But profitability isn't determined only by what comes out of the combine.
How grain is stored, moved, priced, hedged, negotiated, and sold can have a major impact on the value ultimately captured by the farm.
Mike and Jeff's challenge is simple:
Stop trying to predict the market and start learning how to merchandise your grain.
If you've ever wondered how professional grain merchandisers think—or how your operation could potentially make more money without growing another bushel—this Farm4Profit episode is packed with practical ideas you can begin applying to your operation.
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