Minnesota Farmers Union

(June 3, 2009) - When I was drawing a paycheck as a cocksure marketing advisor and newsletter writer nearly 30 years ago, my colleagues and I often explained our hedging mistakes by simply declaring our advice had been "ahead of the market."

We were right, the line of malarkey went, but the slicksters in the futures markets were too stupid (lazy, ignorant, rich...) to realize it. By the time those clowns came around, though, our clients got cracked for 15- or 20-cents a bushel that, in the early 1980s, oftentimes equaled half the price move for the year in corn, beans or wheat.

The sweetest part of this excuse is that anyone can say they are "ahead of the market" anytime and be right 100 percent of the time because, sooner or later, the market will turn and the now-ripened baloney, although costly, will be proven correct.

This can't-miss advice came to mind recently when I read an on-line marketing guru urge farmers to "get ahead of this market" and begin selling some of their 2009, 2010 and 2011 corn because this year's record rainfalls east of the Mississippi will "make a lotta' grain."