Don’t chase the market: planning for long-term profitability
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For many UK arable farmers, current grain prices make for difficult reading. Margins are tight, and it can feel impossible to sell at a profit at all. Yet even in a tough market, the fundamentals of good grain marketing remain the same. The most successful businesses focus not on chasing the highest headline price, but on consistently managing profitability over time.
As attention turns to next year’s harvest cycle, how can you promote stability rather than speculation?
Beyond the headline price
It’s tempting to think of marketing as a search for that “perfect” moment – the one day when prices are at their peak. The problem is that no one can reliably predict when that will be. Basing decisions solely on price is a gamble.
Profitability, on the other hand, is about controlling the factors you can. It means knowing your cost of production, recognising when the market offers a margin and acting steadily to protect the farm business year after year.
The reality of low prices shouldn’t be brushed aside – it’s a hard place to be, and every grower is feeling the strain. Long-term planning recognises that sometimes you need to sell to minimise losses, or to meet immediate cashflow needs.
Thinking long term
Looking at grain marketing from a multi-year perspective is often more useful than focusing on one harvest in isolation. One difficult season doesn’t define the whole farm’s future, just as one bumper price doesn’t guarantee security. What matters is the average outcome over time.
By spreading sales across different points in the season, you reduce the risk of being locked into one low point in the market. Selling little and often doesn’t deliver the absolute top every time, but it does create stability, which allows you to plan for the future.
It also gives you a framework for your short-term tactical selling. This year, one of the key themes is the need to stay flexible on movement to take advantage of regional pockets of demand where you might see a premium.
Using clear profit benchmarks
When you know your breakeven per tonne, you can quickly see whether a forward price is worth locking in. Without that benchmark, it’s easy to hold out too long and miss workable opportunities.
This doesn’t mean selling every tonne in advance, nor does it mean ignoring the market outlook. It’s about striking a balance: protecting margins when they’re available, while keeping some flexibility in case prices improve.
Grain marketing alongside your yearly production cycle is essential to long-term profitability
Profit is intrinsically linked to your yearly cycle of production: buying seed and other inputs, establishing and then harvesting your crop, then reinvestment for the following year’s production.
Grain marketing is best thought of, not as a single stage of this production cycle, but as a year-round activity combining forward sales, risk management, storage decisions and market monitoring.
Some will sell to lock in prices before their seed is even in the ground. Some will wait for the crop to become established. But all long-term profitability management involves some degree of forward-selling.
Building resilience
None of us can control the market. What we can control is how we manage it. Every farm is different, but a few guiding practices stand out:
Lock in small percentages when margins appear – don’t wait for perfection
Spread sales through the season – reduce the pressure of one big decision
Don’t underestimate how storage costs can eat into your profitability
Above all, treat grain marketing as an ongoing process, not a once-a-year gamble. Markets are inherently unpredictable, so any strategy that relies on coordinating sales with price peaks will be inherently risky.
A stable, profit-focused plan – based on cost awareness and steady sales – smooths the highs and lows, giving you the confidence to make decisions when opportunities arise.
Start planning for long-term profitability with Hectare Trading. If you need any help getting started, contact our expert team today.
This article is for general information only and is not an instruction to trade. While we make every effort to ensure the accuracy of the content at the time of publication, Hectare Trading makes no guarantee regarding the data provided.