The BIGGEST challenge in farming right now is managing all the data that happens throughout the season and being able to make better management and financial decisions based on that data.

Watch as Scott walks you through solutions to managing the data into an actionable format.

The biggest challenge in farming right now is managing all the data that happens throughout the season and being able to make better management and financial decisions based on that data.

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Every farmer needs to take advantage of futures contracts, here’s an important first question:

What are they?

Futures are derivatives of a commodity that allow buyers and sellers of that commodity to fix prices at some point in the future. The whole purpose of the futures market (for you, the farmer) is to manage price risk.

For a stock or bond, you buy and sell it whenever you want. Futures, on the other hand, have contracts that expire. That’s what makes them so complicated: every contract moves at a different rate than the next.

Still, with a little knowledge, you can use futures contracts to hedge your grain. These five nuggets will help you learn how to use futures to manage your risk.

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Hope is not a good grain marketing strategy.

The price risk you run when you store grain doesn’t go away, even if you hold your breath. Even though harvest is over, a lot of the numbers are coming out. If you’re already tight with your break-even cost of production, you want to make sure you’re not losing more money as that grain sits at the elevator.

How do you this? By developing a specific risk management strategy—or multiple strategies.

Here are seven strategies you can use to hedge stored grain.

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It feels like video games back in the day were always hiding something.

In all those classic 2-D games (e.g., Super Mario and Donkey Kong) there were secret parts of the “level” that led to treasure, goods, or new places—if you knew where to look. The good stuff was all right there, under your nose, but you wouldn’t find it unless you were looking.

I think there’s a good lesson farmers can learn here. There are nuggets of profit hidden all over your operation, right now, that you can find if you know what to look for. Honestly, a few tweaks here and there can be the difference of tens of thousands of dollars for you annually.

Let me help you start looking by showing you six areas where your profit is hiding.

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Data organization: The ability to organize and structure data to locate strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities in the farming operation.

On every operation, big or small, there are a lot of data points. Those data points have to be organized into a structure in order to locate efficiencies and inefficiencies.

Otherwise, you might go into a negotiating meeting not unprepared. A lot of farmers go to the negotiating table simply saying “that’s too expensive.” But if you bring specific, organized data from last year’s purchases, you’ll give yourself bargaining power and protection.

Data is useless unless it’s organized into a usable format. That’s really the point of the Cash Cow Farmer program: to manage your expenses and revenue so you can find the best investments in your operation.

Whether you use Cash Cow or some other means of recording, there are main types of farm data you should be tracking.

When I first started farming, my dad told me: “You have to know what every field costs to produce that crop”.

My experience working on Wall Street taught me that to measure profits, I needed to keep good records---I needed some kind of personal farm software.