Women marketing grain meetings set June 7
ANKENY – Women will learn how to market grain through volatile times when they attend a series of weekly meetings coordinated by Iowa State University Extension and the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation. Women Marketing Grain: Understanding Strategies and Tools will be held on Thursday evenings over five weeks.
Meetings will be held at the FFA Enrichment Center, 1055 SW Prairie Trail Parkway on the Ankeny DMACC Campus.
The first meeting will be held from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on Thursday. The registration fee is $30 per individual for all five weeks and can be paid at the first meeting.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Pre-register prior to Tuesday is requested by calling the Polk County Extension Office at (515) 957-5760. This will allow organizers to coordinate training material, drinks and snacks.
Enrolling in the meetings will include participation in the 2012 Pre-Harvest Iowa Commodity Challenge, an online market simulation game. Challenge registration takes place at the first meeting and trading continues until harvest.
Challenge participants get first-hand knowledge about the use of futures and options contracts as risk management tools. They will be given a virtual 75,000 bushels of corn and 25,000 bushels of soybeans and can use futures or options contracts for December corn or November soybean futures contracts.
Weekly meetings will include various crop marketing discussions led by Steve Johnson, farm management specialist with ISU Extension and Outreach; Ed Kordick, commodity services manager with Iowa Farm Bureau Federation; Ellen Batchhelder, Cargill Grain Merchandising; Craig Solberg, Freese-Notis Weather; and Jayme Kohake, Paragon Investments.
For more information about the program, visit the Polk County Extension farm management Web page at: www.extension.iastate.edu/polk/news/women-marketing-grain.