I posted this in on another thread awhile back and figured it is appropriate here.
In this day and age, if you want to be successful in Ag, you have to be progressive/efficient and actually learn how to market your commodities. If you are just hauling your crops to the elevator or your cattle to the sale barn and just taking that price, you are leaving money on the table. Most of the Farmers and Ranchers going out of business these days are the ones who do just that. I manage a grain company here in the Texas Panhandle so I see a lot of this stuff first hand.
People don't like hearing this but in AG, the big are just going to get bigger and the smaller are just going to get smaller. The big farmers are actively hedging their crops and putting on forward contracts two years out. They also get a better price on all of the inputs since they are buying so much. These guys are more businessmen than they are farmers.
Now the smaller farmers don't give a crap about learning how to be efficient or how to properly market their grain. Granted their land is paid off because it's been in the family for generations and so is their equipment since it's 20 years old. These farmers kids don't want to farm because they see how rough their parent's have had it and go off to work corporate jobs. Once the farmer retires he usually sells the land to one of the larger farmers since the smaller ones can't afford it.
The ranching side is mostly the same from what I have seen. The successful ranchers really put a lot of care and effort into their genetics and have a buyer set up for their calfs before they even hit the ground. They also invest a lot of time into herd and land management along with hedging. The small guys just throw them out in a pasture and feed them.
