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Show Farmers to meet Improved marketing methods for Utah's farmers and ranchers are the object of two special forums on the futures market taking place at Snow College in Ephraim Tuesday and at Utah State University in Logan Wednesday . The day-long sessions will be sponsored by the Utah Farm Bureau Federation (UFBF) and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), a futures-trading facility that handles mainly livestock futures. The UFBF Young Farmers and Ranchers committee is coordinating the meetings. Interested persons can register at the start of either forum. A registration fee of $10 covers lunch, two breaks, and the complete packet of materials. The forum at Snow College will be in the auditorium; at Utah University, it will be held in the Union Center auditorium. The inside workings of futures contracting, hedging, and forwarding contracting will be explained ex-plained by some of the nation's top experts on the subject. Staff members from CME will walk attendees through a valuable set of materials during the 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. schedule. Experts see marketing as the biggest area of improvement for agricultural producers in the 1980's, UFBF President Frank 0. Nishiguchi pointed out in urging all farmers and ranchers in the state to attend. "The weakest link in a rancher's or farmer's production-marketing chain is where the losses come in," he said, "and for many of us, that's in the area of marketing to assure a profit. Here's a chance for Utah farm and ranch couples to strengthen that link in one day of training." Forum topics include "Marketing AlternativesAn Alter-nativesAn Opportunity for Profit," "Overviews of Futures Trading" (a motion picture), "Steps to Forward Pricing Through Futures," "The Lender's Role in a Marketing Plan" (to be given by a Utah lender), "Hedging Workshop," "A Local Producer's View of Hedging" (to be given by a Utah rancher), "Comparison of Forward Pricing Strategies" and a question-and-answer session at the end of the program. |