HEDGING TECHNIQUES FOR AGRICULTURAL PRODUCERS

I am delighted to be here today talking about hedging and how it can be applied to the marketing strategies of agricultural producers in agriculture. It is good to have so much interest developing at the marketing end of agriculture, because it seems do me that too much attention has long been paid to production and too little to marketing. Even in the United States, which has developed perhaps the most sophisticated marketing techniques in the world, farmers are still too production oriented. Futures markets, where hedging techniques can be applied the best, are more than 100 years old in America and yet only a small proportion of America\u27s farmers utilize them