Marketing seminar helps today's farmers focus on tomorrow

Just because Southeast Missouri's harvest is all but over doesn't mean that the work of area farmers is finished for the year. In fact, for many the hard work is just beginning.

Glenn DeBrock is long done harvesting the corn and soybeans from his Chaffee, Mo., farm. But now that the majority of his crop is in the silo, it's time for DeBrock to shift his focus to selling it. That's why he and more than 150 fellow area farmers spent Wednesday out of the field and inside the Show Me Center at a seminar designed to help them cultivate their profits.

"I'm here to get an idea of what the market's going to do," DeBrock said. "As a farmer, you try to get all the ideas you can and put them together. This gives me a different view."

The Strategic Ag Marketing Outlook Seminar 2005 was put on by the consulting firm Agricultural Resource Management Solutions of Cape Girardeau. The event featured regional agriculture experts giving presentations on a variety of topics.

Event organizer Wade Baumgartner with the Cape Girardeau consulting firm said the purpose of the seminar was to get vital information to the producers so they can gain a competitive advantage when managing and marketing their commodities in a volatile market.

"Whether the market is good or bad, ag marketing is something you've got to approach with a plan in place," he said.

A plan is precisely what Jackson farmer Joe Voshage came to find. A retired factory worker, last year Voshage came on board to help with the family farm. He is now trying to learn the ropes of ag marketing so he can take over the row crop and cattle farm after his father retires.

"I came to find out what the market's doing," he said. "I'm just getting back into farming and I'm still learning a lot."

trehagen@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137