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Iowa farmer says forward contracting is difficult when “black swans are flocking”

An Iowa corn and soybean farmer is hesitant to forward-contract partly because of major global events in the past couple of years.

April Hemmes of Hampton tells Brownfield she does have confidence in the futures market.

But I also know anything can happen (like) more offshoots of COVID virus, another African swine fever (case) in China. All those black swans we have, they’re flocking and it doesn’t make me very happy sometimes.”

Hemmes is proceeding with caution as she looks to make some sales for next year.

“I found out I was one of the few that didn’t make a whole lot of sales last fall, I kept some (and) did some. I kind of held to my marketing plan, so I still have some unpriced bushels out there.”

She says she’s happy about that because it could’ve gone the other way.