Outreach

Public service through outreach has a long and illustrious history at land-grant universities and I am proud to be a part of that tradition. Throughout my career I have attempted to closely integrate research and outreach activities. In truth, it is hard to tell where one begins and the other ends. Over the years I have made outreach (extension) presentations on a wide variety of topics, including futures market performance, agricultural marketing, market advisory service performance, crop insurance, grain and livestock market outlook, and managed futures investment. I have also had the privilege of leading the farmdoc project over the last decade. This pioneering outreach project provides comprehensive economic analysis and information for farmers and agribusinesses in the U.S. Cornbelt and beyond. The farmdoc website has received over 18 million page requests since its inception in 1999 and is now regularly visited by over 30,000 users each month. I also recently helped lead the development of the farm gate, the first public-sector blog for farmers and agribusinesses in the U.S. Cornbelt. Based on the concept of a 'digital county agent', this site provides integrated information across agricultural subject-matter disciplines and receives over 10,000 unique visitors monthly. If you have never visited either of these websites I hope you will give them a try!

Presentations

Crop Value and Volatility in a New Era (Dec 2008)
Presentation at the 2008 Illinois Farm Economics Summit Meetings. Evidence is presented that a new era of higher crop prices is unfolding and that fundamental value of corn is now being determined in the energy markets.

Influence of Weather and Technology on Corn Yields (Dec 2007)
Presentation at the 2007 Illinois Farm Economics Summit Meetings. Presented a crop-weather model of corn yields in Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa. Models indicated that corn trend yields did not change perceptively in the mid-1990s and the weather is the most important factor in explaining favorable yields recently.

farmdoc: This is Still Your Father’s Extension Program (Mar 2007)
Seminar presentation on the development, organization, evaluation, and lessons learned from the first eight years of the farmdoc project.

Biofuels: Implications for Prices and Production (Dec 2006)
Presentation at the 2006 Illinois Farm Income Meetings. A discussion of the early phase of the biofuels boom in corn prices.

Should Technical Analysis be a Part of Your Crop Marketing Program (Dec 2005)
Presentation at the 2005 Illinois Farm Income Meetings. Reviewed basic techniques of technical analysis, with a focus on charting, the random walk theory of commodity price movements, and evidence on the profitability of trading based on technical analysis.

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.

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.