Conferences
K-State Cattle Risk Management Workshop
James Mintert
Summary
The goal of the workshop is to provide Kansas cattle producers a comprehensive risk management education program that helps them develop the skills necessary to objectively evaluate and use various risk management tools. The workshops accomplish this via a computer-based training tool designed to instruct Kansas cattle producers in the use of each of these risk management tools.
Each workshop consists of a combination of lecture material on a variety of risk management topics and a realistic case-farm simulation that provides attendees the opportunity to make real-time risk management decisions. Each workshop participant has the opportunity to make a series of risk management decisions for a simulated Kansas case farm. Participants can choose from LRP insurance for feeder cattle, futures, options on futures contracts, and forward cash contracts, in addition to traditional cash sales, when managing their case farm operations. The computer program facilitates comparing marketing alternatives and also tracks participants’ decisions. At the end of each workshop participants can compare their case farms’ performance to other case farms at the workshop and see how their strategies would “play out” over a large number of years by simulating the results for a variety of different outcomes. This helps participants evaluate various strategies outcomes, if pursued over the course of several years, not just a single year. Evaluating strategies in this context greatly improves participants understanding of the role of risk management on a Kansas farm operation.
This session will focus on the key factors that have made this workshop successful.
Presentation Materials
Details
| Conference | 2007 National Extension Risk Management Education Conference |
| Presentation Type | 60-Minute Concurrent |