MU Extension Offers Educational Grain Marketing Game

Feb 26, 2015

By Mark Jenner

After a successful run last year, University of Missouri Extension is offering a second round of the online grain marketing game “Show-Me Market Showdown” from March 2 to May 8.

The goal of the program is to improve farmers’ knowledge of grain marketing strategies and encourage them to develop sound marketing plans. “Show-Me Market Showdown” is a fun, risk-free way to learn about grain markets, says Mark Jenner, MU Extension agriculture business specialist.

The game uses a third-party website called CommodityChallenge.com to allow players to execute virtual transactions based on real-time market prices. The website monitors players’ market positions, executes their trades and summarizes their virtual account balances.

Although the game is competitive, the main focus is for players to learn the risks and rewards of alternative marketing strategies and understand the mechanics of various marketing tools.

“Players each receive an electronic endowment of corn, beans and wheat, and they compete with each other to see who can increase—or keep from losing—the value of their grain over the 10-week gaming period,” says Jenner. “It is a risk-free opportunity to experiment with grain marketing tools and strategies. The game structure allows for friendly competition between families and co-workers. One farmer intends to sign up everyone in the family.”

MU Extension agriculture business specialists will offer guidance and instruction through weekly emails and a game blog. The emails and blog will also provide a forum for discussion among the game coordinators and participants.

“Players make trades from their own computer and Internet connection,” Jenner says. “They can put as much or as little into the game as they want. Since the game is educational, a valid alternative strategy to ‘competing’ is to try new tools to understand how they impact your grain value. The reward of learning in this case outweighs risk of playing in this virtual market.”

An additional program objective is to educate nonfarmer participants about the complexities of grain marketing and increase their awareness of the challenges farmers face when they make marketing decisions.

Source:missouri.edu

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.