New Product release, introducing a new set of risk management modules. Risk Management made simple.

• What-If Analyzer – Create what-if analysis adjusting yield, price, basis and insurance levels to determine worst case/ best case opportunities.
  • Understand your risk exposer when yields and markets are volatile.
  • Realize estimated value on your unsold grain, futures, options and how it affects your bottom line.
  • Determine estimated “indemnity payment” on current crop insurance program.
• Offer Management Tools – Manage all offers from one secure site. Track offers in house with option to allow clients to send offers via the internet system. NO Transaction fees.

What-If Analyzer – Powerful tool to help the producer and the agribusiness understand potential risk exposure

Grain Procurement – Make procuring grain simple for all your originators or manage all from one location!

Photos: Drought Disaster 2012

http://www.weather.com/news/drought-disaster-photos-20120713

A very neat video on farming. Went viral with over 6.5 million views!!

New Manager Setting

A new Manager setting to manage marketing by individual crop profiles or merge to manage in a combined profile

In this example the client has chosen to manage his marketable bushels by individual crop profiles.

In this example the client has selected to “merge all like profiles” to manage the marketable bushels from a single “corn” profile.

Another minor change we made is relocating the insurance link to be a part of the Manager

The GrainBridge Messenger allows you to manage your time more effectively by creating a message for a group or all your clients in a matter of seconds. Two options are available including text message or voice broadcast. Below is a snapshot of the Messenger and a few key points in creating a message.

Key components of the Messenger:

1. As you “Add Clients” to the system be sure to add a contact number and this client will be added as a recipient in the Messenger.
2. You can “Group” clients from the clients tab by geography, product use etc. to customize the message for a specific group.
3. A GrainBridge Phone number is created specifically for your business. Treat this as a new phone number and let your customers know you will be sending messages from this number.
4. Sending a “New Broadcast” is a simple two-step process;
• select text or voice message from the “New Broadcast” tab
• select the recipients or group you want to communicate with
• text message- create the message up to 160 characters then click submit
• voice message- select “announcement” or “survey”, choose a title for the message then submit. A toll free number is provided, follow the instructions and create a personalized message. Review and submit.
• The survey option allows you to poll clients on specific items you would like feedback on. They can respond by numeric page on their mobile phone and you will receive details of that survey as shown above in the table.
5. Details of all messages are provided on the Messenger Dashboard. You can sort messages via text, voice mail or by date created. Details of the message are available including a playback feature and charts for results of any survey created.

GrainBridge support can help you get started by uploading your client list and creating your first message. Take advantage of this innovative tool to help manage your TIME.

GrainBridge Team

With land prices as high as we have seen in our lifetime there are a few key factors that should be considered.
#1 Current financial position – Are you flush with cash or will you be taking out a loan?
#2 Land Valuations – Where do you think land values will go in the next 1-3-5 years?
#3 Interest Rates – Where are they headed and what is the prospect of borrowing today vs 2 years from now.

Read more on this subject in the April edition of Corn & Soybean Digest –

http://cornandsoybeandigest.com/issues/math-land-buys

We have a new release out for you today. Here are some of the changes and new items.

Manager Report – new summary section

This section at the top of the report combines all crop profiles to give you a whole farm summary comparing your target revenue to current revenue.

Planner Report – New Target Revenue column

Summary of potential target revenue incorporating your profit goals, expenses and incomes

New commodities

We’ve added several new commodities.

• Organic Corn
• Sweet Corn
• Durum
• Organic Soybeans
• Canola-Rapeseed
• Sunflower-Confectionery
• Sweet Potatoes
• Processing Beans-Snap
• Peanuts
• Dry Beans-Black
• Dry Beans-Great Northern
• Dry Beans-Light Red Kidney
• Dry Beans-Dark Red Kidney
• Dry Beans-Pea (Navy)
• Dry Beans-Pinto
• Dry Beans-Pink
• Dry Beans-Small White
• Dry Beans-Small Red
• Dry Beans-White Kidney
• Dry Beans-Cranberry
• Tobacco

Delivery range for Cash transactions

Instead of picking First Half/Last Half or All month for your delivery date on a cash sale, now you can pick a start date and an end date to reflect the exact delivery range of your sale.

Link to GrainBridge from Outlook or any CRM system

if you use Microsoft Outlook or a more advanced system to manage your client base and contacts, now you can link it directly to load up the client profile in GrainBridge. Please drop us a note and we’ll help walk you through that process.

We have made many new improvements to the interface along with a few bug fixes based on feedback from the field. If you have any notes for us on how we can make this a better tool for you, please let us know.

The GrainBridge Team

You know that feeling of being thrown onto a piece of equipment that you haven’t operated for a year? It feels a bit awkward until you get reacquainted. Well, many farmers often feel that way every year when faced with crop insurance and risk management decisions. The strategies may have been familiar once, but now is a good time to review crop insurance values (especially as the March 15 deadline looms) and the wisdom of making pre-harvest sales against insured bushels.

Read more on this subject in the February 15th Corn & Soybean Digest
http://cornandsoybeandigest.com/marketing/real-crop-insurance-value

Managing risk on your operation is a full time job! Lean on your input supplier who watches major input costs on a monthly basis to help you make key decisions on when to book your fertilizer, price your seed corn and lock in fuel needs.

As commodity prices find their range so will key inputs like fertilizer. The expectation is that on average most of your input costs will be up by 10-15% this year, according to Iowa State economist, Mike Duffy – http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/articles/others/JohSept11.html

Are you and your customer prepared for $4 corn and $10 beans? Take a look at the current statistics for production costs and potential risk exposure going into the 2012 growing season. These statistics were taken on 02/01/2012 for a grower in the western cornbelt.

It’s not unusual for a producer to pre-pay two-thirds of their fertilizer and fuel needs 6-8 months in advance of the spring growing season. As you make these purchases incorporate a forward sale to cover those costs and protect your investment. With key crop input costs making up over 60% of your variable costs of production, these decisions can make or break a good year!

To learn more on this topic see the article in Corn & Soybean Digest – http://cornandsoybeandigest.com/marketing/manage-input-costs-8020-rule

As my grandfather repeatedly reminded me in the 80’s – “The only way to make a good profit in the cattle business is by buying the calves right.” I believe his theory works here as well.

Until next time,

Pat Kroese

Here is a great article on Risk Management by Pat Kroese of GrainBridge in the latest edition of the Corn and Soybean Digest.

Corn and Soybean Digest