going to be an interesting year.

[rayjenkins]

SW......thank you for the honest and detailed explanation of what you have gone through........our company will never get to where it wants to be until we are willing to accept the critique of our customers.....even when it may not paint us in the best light..

I wouldn't worry too much about being on anybody's blacklist.....you sound like a guy I would enjoy doing business with!

Ray J

[crophugger]

Cap there is a reason there isn't any wheat planted on my farm anymore when hauling into the merchant there is constantly something wrong scab, vomitoxin, protein to low to high test weight yada yada. So some intelligent people got together and created ethanol to not only replace mtbe but to be able to capialize and enhance our wealth on a product that would be demand for. I'll say it again ethanol best thing ever happened to my farm. But now another huge hurdle has come up and that is transportation.

[sw363535]

Ray a lot of it is just getting caught in personel and policy changes that are not thought out very well.  The new kid out of school has a hard time finding the accounts lists let alone holding on to existing relationships.  In all three cases  we worked with managers we liked and trusted and in all three replacement was a struggle.

I always thought I had the tools and skills to take farming to a bigger business model.  But It is extroardinarily difficult to manage growth effeciently.  And the variety of skills needed is hard to get.  A large business model like Cargill must have extroardinarily skilled personell to be stable over decades. 

I thought I could train management.  But there is no replacing experience and even a guy with experience has to have a high level of discernment in regard to his mistakes or they go unrecognized and the experience is waisted.

Personell training is key but I am not too good at it.  Can't immagine how difficult the issue is at the corporate level.

[brokefarmer]

hope everyone has their tinking caps on because of all the good points made. 

[brokefarmer]

very good point ,the crop isn't made yet. but sounds like some believe it's in the bag

[brokefarmer]

ray no contracts here just forage crops that i direct market to customers, set my own price. unfortunetly no grain to market this year because of no wheat harvest in oklahoma.

hopefully the high priced contracts are honored so farmers don't get burned.

i have never forward contracted because i like to have the grain in the bin, too many times i have seen my crops wiped out by hail in just a few seconds. 50 bu wheat to 0 bu wheat.

hail unlikely to happen to corn, but jack frost could take a few bu off.

most years i would sell my crops on the up swings pretty simple to figure out get the farmer excited in august so he will put fertlizer on, then november again. then spring run up so the farmer will topdress.

looks like to me most farmers should look at puts and calls and not even plant a crop, use the ups and downs alot cheaper then trying to produce a crop.

[kraft-t]

It seems to me that a contract is a contract whether the buyer is the current one or a previous one. The company has one copy and the seller another and the terms should be clearly identified.

I would be most difficult to deal with if confronted by different terms.  I'd be talking to lawyer daggot. A little true grit lingo there. Ha!