An upcoming Nebraska Extension workshop will help farmers develop marketing plans for 2020.

“Risk and Reward: Using Crop Insurance and Marketing to Manage Farm Survival” will be presented in Scottsbluff, North Platte, West Point and Clay Center in January and February.

Extension economists will discuss the role of farm location and yield/price relations in making informed grain marketing and crop insurance decisions.

“This is a unique opportunity to think about grain marketing differently,” said Jessica Groskopf, a regional economist with Nebraska Extension. “Often, we think of marketing and crop insurance as two separate decisions. This workshop will show the importance of how these tools work together to help farms survive.”

“Understanding production risk becomes especially important as farm locations move farther from the center of the Corn Belt,” said Cory Walters, associate professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics. “These workshops are designed to assist Nebraska farmers improve their decision-making and understand the role of production risk considerations in their marketing plans.”

Participants will learn how to use crop insurance and pre-harvest marketing together. The workshops will encourage producers to focus on specific risks to evaluate the balance between these two tools, which will vary from operation to operation.

“The role of crop insurance and marketing is not the same for everyone,” said Walters. “Farm location matters.”

Attendees should leave the workshops with a strategic plan of farm survival, focused on the role and use of crop insurance and pre-harvest marketing specific to their location and crop.