For many farmers, marketing clubs are hot commodities

Once a month, Phil Ferda gets away from his north-central Montana grain farm for an hour or two to meet in Great Falls with other farmers and ranchers and talk about the weather, work and ways to make more money on their cattle and grain.

For Ferda, it’s time well spent. He figures the information swapped and strategies learned during his regular marketing club meetings — from how much a neighbor is paying for fertilizer to using hedging techniques to market wheat — have helped him earn thousands of dollars more a year than if he’d never started making the 30-mile trips into town.

"I hate to miss a meeting, because I always figure there’s something I’m going to miss out on," he said.

The Associated Press

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