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“Marketing is one of the humblest parts of farming,” said Jason Moss, who received the Joe O’Neill Cotton Marketer of the Year Award at the recent Beltwide Cotton Conference in Fort Worth, Texas. “It’s one,” he said.
Moss, accompanied by his daughter Madeleine, accepted the award on behalf of Pringle Family Farms, a farming partnership with Chris Bogner near Pringle, Texas. Combined, he operates 8,000 acres of corn, sorghum, cotton, wheat and cattle, including 2,500 acres of cotton. In addition to farming, Moss is also a senior marketing consultant for Block His Associates.
After his presentation, Moss cited a variety of marketing tools and an emphasis on the decision-making process as the secret to success. “As farmers, we tend to think that what we need is the best price forecast, the best weather forecast, or the best information,” he told Farm Press. “But what we really need to do is focus on how to turn information into decisions.”
Right, Texas A&M Extension cotton economist and Farm Press columnist John Robinson presents Jason Moss of Pringle Family Farms with the Cotton Marketer of the Year award (Photo by Shelley E. Huguely)
Diversification is also beneficial. “I like to put one-fifth to one-third of my crop into various pools and deposit the rest. Texas uses acre contracts rather than bale contracts, so I like to put those That’s what we call futures prices.
From Illinois to Texas
Although Mr. Bogner grew up in Colorado, Mr. Moss’ agricultural roots are on his family’s farm in midwestern Illinois. “I’m a corn, soybean and hog farmer from the Midwest,” he said. After Brock began consulting with his associates producers in 2006, Moss’ clientele expanded to include producers in his Texas panhandle.
In 2014, a farm in the Stinnett, Texas area was put up for sale. “I pushed the numbers and ended up branching out. Over the next few years I bought a farm and a few more, then started farming with my current partner and went from there. I’ve grown.”
It wasn’t until 2019 that he convinced his wife, Megan, to move the family to Texas. “It was right in the middle of COVID,” he said. The plan was to move in the summer of 2020, but due to school closures in Illinois, they moved in April instead.
“Everything was shut down in Texas at the time,” Moss recalled. “I thought my family was trying to kill me. ‘Look, you’re moving us to this remote place. We can’t go anywhere. We don’t know anyone.’
“It was tough,” he admitted, but it didn’t take long for them to call the Lone Star State home.
Moss and Bognor grow mainly irrigated cotton and maize. “This is irrigation country. He has a one in three chance of having a dryland crop. So dryland farming is really like insurance,” he said. “We grow quite a bit of milo, wheat, and sometimes cotton on dry land.”
We also have a breeding Angus operation with approximately 1,000 cows/calves.
Marketing is not static
Mr. Moss shared some observations and considerations regarding crop marketing based on his career as a consultant and producer.
Developing a market plan and understanding production costs is not a one-time decision. “Sometimes we treat marketing like a static document or think that we only prepare it once a year and don’t come back and deal with it regularly.
“What I always say is, look at your sales history. It reveals your biases and whether you have certain beliefs. Sell your crops for less than 10 total transactions per year. If so, you can diversify and make more decisions.”
Embedded biases are things like, “I have to do my marketing upfront,” “I can’t deliver to ‘that’ elevator,” and “I have to use crop insurance to do my marketing.” he says. If you don’t recognize bias, Moss recommends having someone, like your spouse, review your sales history. “That should be obvious.”
Next, set parameters that will help you make marketing decisions. “Several things like the minimum amount to sell at planting, or the minimum amount to sell before harvest, or the minimum amount to diversify into an elevator program, or the maximum amount that remains unsold in farm storage on January 1st of the new year. Set parameters.”
His biggest marketing regret has to do with quantity, not price. “We either sell too much or too little, or we sell everything or we don’t sell anything at all. Not that this price is bad by any means.
“My signature belief is that I always know where I want to sell my next bushel. [or cotton bale]. It’s okay if you don’t want to sell cotton today. But today, I want you to be able to say at what price you would like to sell your next cotton bale. ”
Marketing misconceptions
Avoid assuming all cotton contracts are created equal. “Our gin, Moore County Gin north of Dumas, does a good job of presenting growers with their current contracts with each cotton merchant. If you take a closer look at them, there are quite a few differences.”
Don’t think there are only a few ways to sell your crops. “There are actually several different types of contracts from several different companies,” Moss said.
Marketing 101
A basic marketing approach should include time, price, and quantity. “For example, if you have unsold cotton right now and the March cotton price is in the range of 77 cents to 85 cents, and 30% of the crop remains on the market, then between 82 cents and 5% to 82 cents. 10% order may be fixed” and 84.
“We take the expected price range over an estimated time period to figure out the quantity.”
When a client says, “I have some unsold stock, should I sell it?” what they’re really asking is, is the price going to go up or down? What I need to know is when your drop dead day is and where are you going to sell it anyway regardless of what I tell you or what the market does. And then it goes back again.
“If you have time between now and February 15th,th How much do you think the price will be in order to sell this much production within that period? We place some orders here and set a surrender price where if we’re wrong and it goes the other way and we still have to sell, we’ll admit we were wrong and sell anyway. let’s. ”
Outlook for 2024
Moss said producers will be watching closely to see how prices respond to the Department of Agriculture’s March acreage report as they enter 2024. “Each year, cotton acreage seems to be squeezed out due to competition from grain. What happens to prices between now and planting, or between now and when acreage is reported, and how prices react after that? Depending on what you do, your grain acres will go up or down.”
He expects cotton acreage in the Panhandle to increase even more this year. “That’s because a lot of acres that were meant to be planted last year didn’t get into the ground because of the record rains in May and June. So some rotation is a good way to put it back into the ground.” There’s going to be a lot of dry cotton. We’ve had some moisture over the winter, so a lot of the dryland acres will probably be seeded with cotton.”
The Joe O’Neill Cotton Marketer of the Year Award is named after Joseph J. O’Neill, former CEO of the New York Cotton Exchange, and is sponsored by BASF and ICE Futures (formerly the New York Stock Exchange). doing.
Want to know who participated in Belt Wide? Take a look!
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