Pre-harvest crop marketing questions are similar every year: What will be the highest prices for selling the 2018 crop?  What time would be best to price 2018 crop?  How much of the 2018 crop should be sold prior to harvest?  Each farmer needs to answer these questions individually since each farming operation has different needs and risk tolerances.

Yet, even with these questions, history shows that often the best price and time to begin executing a marketing plan is often well ahead of harvest.  

To illustrate this, let’s look at a snapshot of new crop prices in the spring (represented by May 1) versus...