Let Farmers Weekly help you get the best deal for your grain this season
© Tim Scrivener Farmers selling combinable crops often don’t get the full value of their grain because they don’t find the best buyers. Now Farmers Weekly can help fix that.
The 2019-20 growing season was a challenging one for most grain growers, with production across the country dropping to levels not seen since the 1970s.
So this year in particular it’s vital that growers get the best deal possible when selling their crop.
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With that in mind, Farmers Weekly has teamed up with the UK’s biggest online grain marketplace to offer a service designed to do just that – to help growers find the very best buyers for the grain they have to sell, at the time they want to sell it.
Farmers Weekly Graindex is an online grain trading platform for combinable crops that allows farmers to put grain in front of up to 100 potential buyers spread across the UK.
By reaching so many potential buyers, the service ensures that farmers find the buyers who actually want the grain of the specification they have, at the time the farmer wants to sell – and are willing to pay what it’s actually worth.
Farmers Weekly Graindex: key features
- Put your grain in front of up to 100 buyers
- Finds buyers who actively want what you’ve got – and are willing to pay what it’s worth
- All buyers credit checked
- Lots typically get four to six bids
- Core service free to use for sellers
- Premium service available, with grain sampling, weekly market insight and other benefits
That can result in a significantly higher value than if the farmer simply phoned two or three traders they regularly sell to.
Those traders will often offer to buy grain that a farmer has for sale, to maintain their relationship. But if they aren’t actively in the market for that grain at that time, they’re unlikely to offer the full value of the crop.
Think of it as the 21st-century equivalent of the old corn exchange – a marketplace with dozens of buyers poring over each seller’s product and making offers on the grain they really want.
The system is easy to use – it’s been designed by farmers for farmers.
Once you’re signed up to use the service, it typically takes only a couple of minutes to list grain for sale.
Regional support available
If you do need support or have any questions, there are regional staff at the end of a phone ready to help.
When you first put grain up for sale, you will usually get a call from your regional manager to introduce you to the service and check you know what to do.
It’s also a safe way to sell; all of the buyers on the system have been credit checked and this is renewed every week. There is also a payment-guarantee service available.
Registration is free, and there are no commission charges for sellers.
For buyers, the service offers an efficient way to access crops and communicate bids to farmers, and it’s the only place where they can get real-time, anonymised feedback on traded values and bid spreads.
Find more information and sign up for Farmers Weekly‘s Graindex grain trading service.
How Farmers Weekly Graindex works
Selling your grain on Farmers Weekly Graindex couldn’t be easier.
You simply fill in a short form, specifying what you have to sell (variety, quantity, specification), where it is and when you’d like to sell it. You then sit back and wait for the bids to come in.
There are three trading “windows” on each weekday, from 10-11am, 1-2pm and 3-4pm, and unless you specify otherwise, your grain will be offered in the next window.
At the end of the trading window, you can see all of the bids made on your grain – sellers typically get between four and six bids. It’s up to you to choose which one to accept, if any.
While you can see all the bids, and who is bidding, potential buyers cannot see each other’s bids.