Regenerative Grain Marketing

Just like everything else in regenerative agriculture, marketing grain looks different in a post-industrial economy that offers multiple new revenue streams for commercial farms to tap into.

Much study is done of the soil structure, surrounding ecosystem, and overall agronomy program that best fits a regenerating farm. New systems and perspectives are also needed for effective grain marketing in a regenerative context.

There are a number of steps to be taken in the process of reorienting a farm’s marketing strategy to take advantage of new economic opportunities at hand. For example, regenerative farmers typically:

1. Move past a linear fixation on yield * price = revenues;

2. Tap into stackable government and corporate funding programs to layer new revenue into the business in exchange for field records proving practice adoption;

3. Steadily reduce expenses on crop inputs and machinery;

4. Adopt new technology wherever possible to accomplish more of the above;

5. Obtain a third-party certification like the Ecological Outcome Verification (EOV) or Regenified.

At this point, farmers often end up frustrated because these programs aren’t free and grain companies don’t recognize the value associated with achieving their standards. The way some farmers see it, they’ve paid for an auditor to come out and prove the results of their long, hard efforts to transition into regenerative agriculture, and got nothing from the markets in return.

Resetting Expectations

Every farmer has their ‘a-ha’ moment when it comes to taking seriously the advice of chem reps and sales agronomists, so clearly in a conflict of interest. Some do so out of financial necessity, and there’s no shame in that, because the healthier ecosystem that results is all that matters, and it happens in every case.

In the same way, marketing grain regeneratively starts with a reset in how farmers view grain elevators. Consider the distinctions between ‘grain buyers’ and ‘grain markets.’

• Grain elevator collection points must blend many farmers’ grain, all with different quality specifications, into one grade to fulfill a large order from an export buyer or domestic processor.

  • Food companies and biofuel buyers in the markets for crop ingredients are trying to reduce their Scope 3 supply chain emissions by aligning with regenerative farmers.

• Grain buyers are in a perpetual conflict of interest in talking to farmers about prices.

  • Grain traders are more agnostic to price direction because they can effectively hedge their positions using futures and options markets.

Regenerative Grain Marketers

Many farms hire independent grain marketers to help them understand short, medium and long-term cash market trends, and to make pricing decisions. Doing so regeneratively does this too, and takes into account new layers of available revenues, to guide a farm towards maximum profitability.

There’s an old saying that, ‘half of good grain marketing is planting the right crop in the first place.’

This idea is especially applicable on regenerative farms, where new financial incentives are changing the relative profitability of different crop options.