Episode 78 - Developing a Crop Marketing Plan in 2026

Hunter Biram is joined by Will Maples of Mississippi State University to discuss building a disciplined crop marketing plan for 2026. They emphasize using breakeven costs to set realistic price targets, spreading sales to manage risk, and documenting marketing decisions to reduce emotion and improve long-run performance. The conversation also highlights how marketing plans should work alongside crop insurance and Farm Bill programs to support proactive, rather than forced, marketing decisions. 

Transcript

00;00;00;06 - 00;00;31;06
Dr. Hunter Biram
A strong marketing plan is built around discipline and consistency, not attempts to time the market perfectly. Price targets grounded in the cost of production and breakeven analysis provide a clear framework for marketing decisions. Documenting marketing decisions improves accountability and helps producers evaluate what strategies work over time. That, and so much more on this episode of Morning Coffee and Ag Markets.

00;00;31;08 - 00;00;41;09
Dr. Hunter Biram
Well, today I'm your host, Hunter Biram and I have a very special guest who is a repeat offender here. That is Dr. Will Maples at Mississippi State University. Will, how are you doing?

00;00;41;11 - 00;00;43;22
Dr. Will Maples
Doing great, Hunter, I appreciate you having me on this morning.

00;00;43;23 - 00;01;07;07
Dr. Hunter Biram
Man, I appreciate you taking time. I know you're just slammed with meetings. You were at Tri-State on Friday. You got the Mississippi Ag Outlook conference today, tomorrow. And so appreciate you taking time. For those who haven't met Will, Will is a really good friend of mine, but Will's also an associate extension professor of ag economics at Mississippi State University, where his research and extension work focuses on farm management, commodity marketing, and risk management strategies.

00;01;07;14 - 00;01;29;07
Dr. Hunter Biram
He holds a PhD in Ag Econ from Oklahoma State. He got his M.S. at Mississippi State and then the bachelor's was at Arkansas. And he works closely with producers to develop disciplined marketing plans that align price risk management with overall farm business goals. And folks, you know what we're going to talk about today. It may seem basic and it really is.

00;01;29;14 - 00;01;50;02
Dr. Hunter Biram
And you may think, guys, you all have a Ph.D., Why are we talking about basic stuff? But listen, if you get away from the basic stuff, you're going to get in trouble. You will get in trouble. So you know, as, as, as Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun. And so today we're going to talk about something that's not new, but it's something that we need reminding of constantly.

00;01;50;03 - 00;02;06;12
Dr. Hunter Biram
So we're going to talk about, developing a crop marketing plan in 2026. So I'm going to provide some background. And Will and I are going to dive into some questions. So, you know, the start of a new year is an ideal time frame for farmers to reassess and strengthen their marketing plans, rather than focusing on capturing the highest possible price.

00;02;06;13 - 00;02;31;04
Dr. Hunter Biram
Effective marketing emphasizes discipline, goal oriented decision making, time to break even, cost risk tolerance, and long run business objectives. A structured marketing plan helps producers navigate price volatility, reduce emotional decision making, and consistently protect profit margins throughout the production year. So Will, what is the primary role of a marketing plan on the farm, and how does it differ from simply just watching prices?

00;02;31;06 - 00;02;51;08
Dr. Will Maples
So, you know, your marketing plan is there on your operation to help guide you in making those pricing decisions? So, you know, a lot of times when you're watching market watching prices, you might let those emotions get a little bit involved when making those decisions, because we don't know where the market's going day to day. The market is volatile.

00;02;51;08 - 00;03;14;26
Dr. Will Maples
Anything can make it go higher or lower. And if you don't have a solid plan in place about how are you going to approach the market and make these sales, you know, sometimes those emotions can take over. So the market starts dropping. You can, you know, you might get scared and start making sales whenever you probably, prices aren't at a good level for your operation in your long term goals.

00;03;14;26 - 00;03;24;11
Dr. Will Maples
So that marketing plans is there to mainly to help you manage emotions and approach marketing sales in a very disciplined format.

00;03;24;16 - 00;03;38;07
Dr. Hunter Biram
And will. As a follow up, I mean, have you had a conversation with a farmer? I mean, you've you've been doing this for, you know, a few years now. Have you had a conversation with a farmer where they shared with you their experience with, creating a marketing plan?

00;03;38;09 - 00;04;00;28
Dr. Will Maples
That's, when I talk to producers about this, it's all over the place. You have some producers that they sit down every year, and they have a written that marketing plan, a very disciplined approach. Here's what I'm going to do this year in terms of my marketing. But then you had the total other end where it is just, I’m going to sell it when I think I need to sell it.

00;04;00;28 - 00;04;26;25
Dr. Will Maples
And then those guys usually end up in a place where, okay, harvest got here, they never booked anything beforehand. The Mississippi River was low, they got nailed on basis. And I heard that story a lot over the last few years as we've been dealing with these river levels. Or even in some of the ones that have storage. This past summer, you know, I had I talked to one producer, he had rice in his bins that were two years old that, you know, he had sold.

00;04;26;28 - 00;04;42;24
Dr. Will Maples
They need you getting those type situations because you never had a plan in place to start with. You never had a something to push you towards making sales and not getting caught up with, you know, where's the market heading and getting caught like that?

00;04;42;26 - 00;05;04;12
Dr. Hunter Biram
Wow. Two years? No, it is crazy to hear that, but man, in Arkansas. I've heard similar stories with rice. With corn, I think. Not as much with soybeans, but rice and corn. Folks have held onto for for a while. So, Will, my next question is how can farmers use breakeven costs? And just real briefly, high level talk about what that means to set realistic and actionable price targets.

00;05;04;14 - 00;05;29;19
Dr. Will Maples
Yeah. So when we look at breakevens cost, you know, very simple concept of just looking at the cost of production on your crop. What do you have to sell that crop for to break even per bushel. So and you know, that's going to vary drastically across producers what their breakeven is going to be. If you own all your farmland versus if you're renting 80% of your farmland, you're going to have a very drastically different break even cost on those acres.

00;05;29;19 - 00;05;48;05
Dr. Will Maples
So that's one thing. When I talk this, and like to point out to producers, you know, what your neighbor's doing and what they sell for doesn’t mean that they're making more money than you are because you might have a lot lower break even cost, you sell at $4 [...] Your neighbor sells at $4.50, he might still have lost money depending on where those costs were at.

00;05;48;05 - 00;06;09;26
Dr. Will Maples
So, you know, a lot of the times you get comparing yourself your others that coffee shop talk man that you have every morning with your fellow producers. Everybody's different when it comes to marketing where those break evens are. But how you incorporate those into your plan is, you know, first you got to have goals for your operation. What are you trying to do in the long run on your operation?

00;06;09;26 - 00;06;27;25
Dr. Will Maples
Are you a younger producer who's just getting into it, you know, or are you trying to grow it? Do you need a better profit margin to keep going? Grow the business as you have goals for? Are you an older producer who's just trying to conserve capital, you know, who’s looking to get out in the next few years, doesn't want to be too risky?

00;06;27;25 - 00;06;58;26
Dr. Will Maples
And all that's going to play into kind of where you would set these price targets at. Maybe you need be more conservative. You know, you're getting break even every year because you're kind of on the downwards trend getting out of the business at this point. You can set lower price targets and so forth. But also though these break even costs that you’re looking at it's like, all right, if you compare it to what the markets used to be, if you have really high break evens costs, and if you look back over the last ten years compared to what prices you could have think you could have got for your commodity, and it's not a lot of

00;06;58;26 - 00;07;07;13
Dr. Will Maples
profit margin there. That's also a time to kind of step back and be like, alright, maybe I need to find places to cut costs on the operation as well.

00;07;07;13 - 00;07;26;04
Dr. Hunter Biram
Yeah. So let's talk about actually. So you mentioned targets, breakeven costs here. So when do we make those moves. And when it comes time when the rubber meets the road and we call up the elevator and we say, hey, grain buyer Joe, like I want to I want to place an order here and promise to bring you X bushels.

00;07;26;08 - 00;07;42;23
Dr. Hunter Biram
Should a farmer do all that? Like right now, when we know you have as much information as we're going to have, should we do that in six months? Is there seasonality, like, should we spread sales? What are what are some things that you found in your research that tend to, increase the greatest expected profit? Yeah.

00;07;42;23 - 00;07;59;20
Dr. Will Maples
You know, this is a question I get a lot. And this is a hard question because there really is no right answer to it. Every year is going to be different. We've done some work here at Mississippi State where we just look back in time, like, all right, we picked out some sales dates, look back over the last 15 years.

00;07;59;20 - 00;08;23;12
Dr. Will Maples
And I was like, what do we think? Kind of to see how would this have turned out for us? And so what we found is if we just, soybeans for example, here in Mississippi just setting some pre harvest times. I think we sold at the 1st of March, April, and May. So 25% at 25%, 25%. And then the final 25% at harvest because you have production risk still.

00;08;23;12 - 00;08;48;21
Dr. Will Maples
So you don't want to book everything pre harvest just in case, from a production risk standpoint. But just setting those time targets on average worked out better than selling everything at harvest did. And that's because, you know, we usually do see seasonality in row crop markets, because if you think about the crop, it's planted in March, April, there's uncertainty on the size of that crop.

00;08;48;21 - 00;09;15;19
Dr. Will Maples
So a little bit better risk premiums built in at the first of the year. And then as the crop grows throughout the year and the market starts figuring out what supply is going to be and so forth. So but that seasonality is not there every year. So that's one thing to point out, is all the research I've read and stuff we've done, you know, pre harvest time sales just trying to capture that early year higher prices is usually the best, but it's not always the best.

00;09;15;19 - 00;09;36;04
Dr. Will Maples
And the work we looked at, four of the 15 years, it was actually the worst thing you could have done. So there's not a clear answer, but the idea is you're in this for the long run. We show that on average, over the long run, that sort of strategy is usually more beneficial than holding everything the harvest. And when it doesn't work out, you just got to be willing to move on to the next year and try again.

00;09;36;04 - 00;09;36;24
Dr. Hunter Biram
Yeah.

00;09;36;26 - 00;09;49;12
Dr. Hunter Biram
If you can make it to the next year, right? That's right. So in 2026, I mean, what are you so you're, you know, getting ready for Mississippi Ag Outlook Conference. You did Tri State on Friday. What do you, what's kind of your message right now when you're talking to producers this winter.

00;09;49;12 - 00;10;14;21
Dr. Will Maples
So right now my main messages is first, as we've been talking, just having that disciplined marketing plan in place, you know, especially this year as tight as everything is on a lot of folks budgets. And what the outlook of these commodity prices unfortunately unless there's some major weather issues with the crop over the summer, you know, there's a lot of stuff that can always drop, shoot the market up, drought, weather.

00;10;14;21 - 00;10;40;03
Dr. Will Maples
But just looking at the fundamentals across corn, cotton, soybeans, it's hard to see any type of huge price rally, you know, like we had a few years ago through this year. So when they sit down with their marketing plan, when they look at those breakeven prices that they have, or, you know, if you can get that, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to lock it in when you can. Leave you some open for those rallies, because we'll we'll get some rallies throughout the summer.

00;10;40;03 - 00;10;46;11
Dr. Will Maples
Weather usually always pushes it higher, but to have that discipline plan in place that allows you to capture those.

00;10;46;11 - 00;11;08;20
Dr. Hunter Biram
Will, one one question I have is in regard to how should a farmer think about each year and what they did, should, should they just say, you know what, this messed up, so just forget about it. I'm not going to think about this again. Or should the farmer be like trying their best to keep that, you know, keep keep that record of what they did year over year just just to see like and look back on experience.

00;11;08;20 - 00;11;11;24
Dr. Hunter Biram
I mean, how can a farmer learn from their own experience in this?

00;11;11;25 - 00;11;34;06
Dr. Will Maples
Every sale they do, they need to write it down. And at the end of the year, come back and analyze it again. If it did mess up, why? Was it because of something they just fundamentally missed when booking the sale that was a mistake? Or did they? Did they used wrong pricing tool whenever they did that? Because we haven’t even mentioned pricing tools, but they each have their uses at different times.

00;11;34;06 - 00;11;55;13
Dr. Will Maples
Maybe they just placed the hedge whenever they were really worried about locking in better basis or so forth. So learning from any mistakes like that, but also realizing that, all right, I did everything right, but the price just wasn't there. Well, that's outside the producer's control. You just had to, you know, accept it and move on to the next year when it comes to those sorts of things.

00;11;55;18 - 00;11;55;25
Dr. Hunter Biram
Yeah.

00;11;55;25 - 00;12;08;10
Dr. Hunter Biram
And so when we're talking about bookings and taking notes, what are some reports? What are the key reports that farmers should be paying attention to and some key dates that they should be paying attention to throughout the, growing season when they're marketing?

00;12;08;14 - 00;12;30;21
Dr. Will Maples
Yeah. So the biggest ones, you know, each month we'll get to monthly WASDE report, World Ag Supply and Demand Estimates. That's the gold standard USDA report of here's what the current supply and demand fundamentals of the market is. The end of March, March 31st is the perspective planning report. This is a major one, it’s all survey based.

00;12;30;21 - 00;12;50;22
Dr. Will Maples
But it's kind of a first look at here's what acres are going to look like. So that is a report that sometimes if corn acres are a lot, are higher than what the trade thinks they are, you can see some price movement around. The June Acreage Report. At the end of June, the USDA comes out with another report on this is what's actually been planted

00;12;50;25 - 00;13;12;25
Dr. Will Maples
report is another major one throughout the growing year. And then just kind of keep an eye on what weather's doing is another, you know, everybody, all the commercial traders that are just trading, you know, not farmers or anything, that are trading futures during the growing year are pretty much just trading weather most of the time. So just kind of keeping an eye on what weather's doing, but not just in their location.

00;13;13;02 - 00;13;37;21
Dr. Will Maples
I mean, unfortunately, no, the Mid-South corn and soybeans are major crops for us, but we are a smaller piece of a lot bigger system. You know, drought in Iowa and Illinois is going to drive the market more so than any drought in Mississippi, and Arkansas is most times. So [..] producers in this area to look north and kind of see what's going on up there.

00;13;37;23 - 00;14;04;21
Dr. Hunter Biram
That is such a good point. I mean, you know, we are not discounting how important, the crop, the value of crop production is to each of our state's economies. It's obviously a huge deal. I know in Arkansas. It's number one. But, you know, in the grand context, within each of those crop markets, when we talk about the global crop market, because that's how we got to think about these things, the global crop market we're really looking at in terms of corn, soybeans especially, we're looking at the “I” states and how well their production is doing.

00;14;04;21 - 00;14;07;20
Dr. Hunter Biram
So it's it's all relative, Will, it's all relative.

00;14;07;20 - 00;14;34;21
Dr. Will Maples
Yeah. You're correct. So you know your local basis, what basis you're getting. That's very local. You know that's going to be driven by your local economy. But when you look at that final cash price, that futures piece makes that the bigger piece of it. That's unfortunately a globally driven price. There's stuff, you know, what's going on in Brazil, everywhere. That’s just more outside the producers control which why having this discipline plan in place to help capture it when it presents a profitable scenario to the producers is

00;14;34;21 - 00;14;35;17
Dr. Will Maples
So important.

00;14;35;19 - 00;14;45;18
Dr. Hunter Biram
Right, so, Will, as we wrap up here, I got one more question. So how should marketing plans interact with, crop insurance and other risk management tools like, say, ARC and PLC?

00;14;45;18 - 00;15;06;06
Dr. Will Maples
That’s a great question, Hunter. And that could be a whole other podcast episode. Sure could. But when I give a crop marketing talk or risk management talk, always like to throw up, this triangle, where it's crop marketing, farm bill programs and crop insurance, all three of those things combined together to kind of build out a farmer's risk management portfolio per se.

00;15;06;08 - 00;15;33;08
Dr. Will Maples
So, you know, when it comes to crop marketing, you know, when you're trying to consider what pre harvest sales to make, for example, I like to say, alright, what kind of crop insurance do you have. So if you face some type of major production loss, if you've got 75% crop insurance, don't market over 75% of your expected APH. Because if you do face production loss, that crop insurance can help you get out of the situation you might have been in with the elevator.

00;15;33;08 - 00;15;56;21
Dr. Will Maples
Then you go look over it like PLC program, you know, with a reference price of $10 on soybeans, of PLC. That's basically like having a $10 put in place on your soybean production. So and then how does that play in with your other marketing decision? So it's a very complex topic. But they all do interact and play in together, you know.

00;15;56;21 - 00;16;10;09
Dr. Hunter Biram
And you make a great point. This could be its own episode. And you know, I think it'd be great to get you back and maybe even have Andy on because, you know, Andy and I have done some work in the crop insurance space, at least in a little bit with ARC, too, because, you know, for soybeans, that's most of the time going to be the better bet.

00;16;10;09 - 00;16;30;10
Dr. Hunter Biram
But you are right. The point you're making is that these risk management tools should not be operated with in their own vacuums, like they all should be working together and each plays off one another. And, you know, we we don't want to introduce complexity, but that is just the nature of the market and where we're at.

00;16;30;10 - 00;16;54;22
Dr. Hunter Biram
And I think it's a really good thing that we have these risk management tools in place. And so, you know, just creates, you know, creates more opportunities for us to educate on, on these risk management tools because we, you know, Will and I and all of our extension colleagues like we want to help, help you as farmers to manage risk and so obviously reach out to us, with any questions that you have, because, you know, that last question is a big one.

00;16;54;24 - 00;17;10;04
Dr. Hunter Biram
But it's a very important one because that coverage level, like, like Will said, is going to drive what your marketing plan looks like. If you're at 75% or if you're if you're at cat or if you're at 85%, are you going to do prevent plant? You know, I mean, does it look like a prevent plant kind of year that's going to play into it?

00;17;10;04 - 00;17;22;05
Dr. Hunter Biram
Because if you don't have any crop to market. And so but you got to think about what that expected return might end up looking like. In ARC/PLC, we had the one big beautiful bill and I had Will on for that. And we talked through some of those changes. And so with that, I think that's a good place to stop.

00;17;22;05 - 00;17;31;18
Dr. Hunter Biram
And so, Will, I appreciate you taking time again to visit and share your expertise and share your experience with farmers. Do you have any other comments?

00;17;31;20 - 00;17;53;02
Dr. Will Maples
No, Hunter, appreciate being on, you know, but one takeaway I like to leave producers with when I give them the marketing talks is when you're got your marketing plan, usually the worst marketing decision you can make is one that you're forced to make. So having a plan in place where you're getting to make those proactive decisions, you're deciding when to sell that crop instead of being forced to sell.

00;17;53;02 - 00;17;59;29
Dr. Will Maples
It is usually when your marketing plan fails. So but I appreciate you getting to be on this morning is always fun to come chat with you.

00;18;00;04 - 00;18;04;15
Dr. Hunter Biram
Yes, sir. And that's great advice. All right everyone, y'all stay tuned for the market report. Thanks.

00;18;04;19 - 00;18;35;23
Evan Ware
Back with your market report as of January 21st, 2026. Corn March 2026 Futures are $4.22 per bushel. That's down 6% from a month ago. And down 13% from a year ago. Corn December 2026 futures are currently $4.50 per bushel. That's down 3% from a month ago and down 2% from a year ago. Rice March 2026 futures are $10.79 per hundredweight.

00;18;35;24 - 00;19;03;22
Evan Ware
That's up 6% from a month ago and down 27% from a year ago. September 2026 rice futures are $11.61 per hundredweight. That's up 6% from a month ago and down 17% from a year ago. Soybeans March 2026 futures are $10.65 per bushel. That's the same from a month ago and up 1% from a year ago. Soybeans November 2026.

00;19;03;22 - 00;19;29;02
Evan Ware
Futures are $10.75 per bushel. That's about the same from a month ago and up 3% from a year ago. Cotton. March 2026 futures are 64.3 cents per pound. That's up 1% from a month ago and down 4% from a year ago. Cotton December 2026 futures are 69.16 cents per pound. That's up 3% from a month ago and about the same from a year ago.

00;19;29;03 - 00;19;59;02
Evan Ware
Wheat July 2026 futures are $5.32 per bushel. That's down 1% from a month ago and down 8% from a year ago. Peanuts US weekly average are currently at $450 per ton. That's up 1% from a month ago and down 16% from a year ago. Moving on to our fertilizer prices, urea is currently averaging $533 per ton. A month ago, it was $521 per ton.

00;19;59;03 - 00;20;25;26
Evan Ware
Three months ago, it was $535 per ton, and a year ago it was $493 per ton. Ammonium nitrate is currently about $448 per ton. A month ago it was $441 a ton. Three months ago was $434 a ton, and a year ago was $465 a ton. Ammonium sulfate is currently about $456 per ton. A month ago, it was $445 a ton.

00;20;25;26 - 00;20;53;17
Evan Ware
Three months ago, it was $493 a ton, and a year ago it was $473 a ton. DAP is currently $803 per ton. A month ago it was $835 per ton. Three months ago it was $943 per ton. And a year ago it was $781 per ton. Triple Super Phosphate is currently about $686 per ton. A month ago, it was $741 per ton.

00;20;53;18 - 00;21;24;18
Evan Ware
Three months ago, it was $803 per ton, and a year ago it was $705 per ton. Potash is currently about $438 per ton. A month ago, it was $459 per ton. Three months ago, it was $470 per ton, and a year ago it was $439 per ton. Arkansas Highway diesel is currently about $3.20 per gallon. A month ago it was $3.27, and a year ago it was $3.29.

00;21;24;19 - 00;21;54;18
Evan Ware
Arkansas Farm Diesel is currently about $2.62 per gallon. A month ago it was $2.36 per gallon, and a year ago it was $2.68 per gallon. The Mississippi River at Memphis current reading is -0.18ft. A year ago it was 0.71ft. Thank you so much to Scott Stiles for putting together our market report numbers each week. And thanks for listening to another episode of Morning Coffee and Ag Markets.

00;21;54;18 - 00;21;57;10
Evan Ware
We hope that you stay warm this week across the state.

00;21;57;12 - 00;22;20;20
Dr. Hunter Biram
If you would like to learn more about the Fryar Price Risk Management Center of Excellence, we encourage you to go to fryar-risk-center.uada.edu. If you want to check out the newsletter associated with this podcast, we encourage you to visit the website and check out podcast newsletters. When you go to podcast newsletters, you should be able to see the most recent newsletters that we published and once in each one of those newsletters.

00;22;20;20 - 00;22;26;10
Dr. Hunter Biram
You should be able to find a link to subscribe if you haven't subscribed already. Thank you for tuning in and we'll catch you next time.