Long-term hedging analysis for corn, soybeans and wheat

Hedging strategies were analyzed in this study which allowed producers to use futures markets to take advantage of an unusually high price during a multi-year period. Gardner (1989) evaluated multi-year futures contracts and found little empirical support for them. However, Gardner did not evaluate the possibilities of long-term hedging using more flexible decision rules. This study modified the methodology developed by Gardner to assess the risks and returns of LTH strategies under certain decision rules designed to take advantage of an unusually high futures price that occurs during a multi-year period. The variance of price received using a strategy which combined a long-term hedge and cash sales was lower than the variance for cash sales or annual hedge only in a 3-year long-term hedge