Outreach

Outreach presentations on a variety of topics, including agricultural marketing, market advisory service performance, crop insurance, grain and livestock market outlook, and managed futures investment.

Team leader for farmdoc, an award-winning outreach project that provides comprehensive risk management information and analysis for farmers and agribusinesses in the U.S. Cornbelt. The farmdoc website (http://www.farmdoc.uiuc.edu/) has received over 6 million page requests since its inception in 1999.

Co-developer of iFARM decision tools introduced between 2000 and 2005. These tools are designed to assist crop farmers with evaluation of crop insurance decisions. (http://www.farmdoc.uiuc.edu/cropins/index.html)

Presentations

The Use and Abuse of Web Traffic Statistics for Extension Program Evaluation (Jul 2005)
Organized symposium presentation at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Agricultural Economics Association. The session was entitled, “What Makes an Outstanding Extension Economics Web Site?"

Sizing Up Your Marketing Advisory Program (Dec 2004)
Presentation at the 2005 Illinois Farm Income Meetings. Reviewed farmer marketing performance for corn and soybeans, provided an in-depth review of the performance of market advisory services and other marketing programs, and discussed factors to consider before signing up for a program.

Risk Assessment for New Generation Grain Contracts (Dec 2004)
Presentation to the Country Elevator Meeting of the National Feed and Grain Dealers Association. Develops different approaches to assessing the risk of new generation grain marketing contracts. The approach should mainly differ according to whether automated pricing contracts or managed hedging contracts are considered.

A Systematic and Disciplined Approach to Crop Marketing (Dec 2004)
Presentation to the Country Elevator Meeting of the National Feed and Grain Dealers Association. Outlines three steps needed to develop a systematic and disciplined approach to crop marketing. The three steps are 1) Start by getting the facts on marketing track record, 2) Use a systematic and unbiased framework for benchmarking performance, and 3) Consider new marketing strategies in light of results in the first two steps.

Grain Marketing: Getting Back to the Fundamentals (Dec 2003)
Presentation at the 2004 Illinois Farm Income Meetings. Provided an in-depth discussion of how to do fundamental analysis of the corn and soybean markets, with an emphasis on understanding USDA crop reports.

A Farmer's Guide to the Pricing Performance of Market Advisory Services in Corn and Soybeans (Aug 2003)
This presentation covers all basic aspects of performance evaluation in corn and soybeans for the 1995-2001 crop years.

Keys to Successful Grain Marketing (Dec 2002)
Presentation at the 2003 Illinois Farm Income Meetings. Examined marketing performance of Illinois corn and soybean producers and provided seven keys to a successful grain marketing program.

Benchmarking Your Marketing Performance and New Generation Contracts (Dec 2001)
Presentation at the 2002 Illinois Farm Income Meetings. Developed two approaches for benchmarking grain marketing performance, a complete and a "quick" approach. Introduced and discussed new grain marketing contracts introduced in recent years.