A person could ask "what does this have to do with marketing?"

I think it has a lot to do with it. IF you believe what I said about the economy and inflation and it comes to pass it means that all commodities at some point in the future will be something from moderately higher to obscenely higher priced. If that is the case a person would not want to jump the gun too much on forward sales. A person believing we are in deflation and prices will not rise for the next several years might be inclined to price his crops one or two years out when prices get to a point that seems very good. If we see severe inflation those forward sales might end up being at half the price the market is offering by the time that harvest rolls around. And if a person did not also lock in input prices he could be hit with a double whammy - lower prices for his crop and higher prices for his inputs. Sound recently familiar?

Of course if a person absolutely KNEW prices would be much higher in the future it would make sense to store a couple years worth of crops and not sell them till then. The problems with that is 1. we might be off in timing of the inflationary event and couldn't hold out long enough 2. most of us have bills to pay and could not hold that much inventory for that length of time and 3. we might just be flat out wrong.

So my marketing, based on what I believe to be an inflationary period coming some time in the not too distant future is:

1. Don't get carried away with forward sales. If profitable prices are offered ahead sell enough to cover notes coming due and operating cash but tend to hold off sales longer than I normally would.

2.Spread out sales. Don't try to market everything at one time trying to hit the top of the market. Take a few grand to Las Vegas if a person feels like gambling. Spreading the sales out at least guarantees a portion of the crop will be sold at higher prices if inflation does take hold.

3. If I am wrong on the inflation, doing the above two things probably will not put me out of business. It might cause me to miss some profitable forward sales that I might have made had I not thought inflation was going to be a problem but spreading sales out will most likely at least not be too terribly bad. A person always has to be cognizant of his fallibility and that he may be wrong.

John