By David Bau, Extension Educator Marketing groups and clubs have been in existence for many years and give farmers the opportunity to share and discuss marketing ideas and strategies. I have worked with several groups since 1999 and currently meet with four groups. Most groups consist of 10 to 20 member farms and meet 12 to 20 times per year for 90 to 120 minutes. Local sponsors are involved in promoting, developing and managing these groups. Marketing groups are ongoing group training and discussion sessions focused on marketing methods, tools, issues, conditions, and trends. The sessions include formal teaching with research based materials from the University of Minnesota, and other credible sources along with discussion facilitated by Regional Extension Educators. Each group formulates a pre-harvest and post-harvest marketing plan that is used to benchmark individual marketing performance. Typical members of marketing clubs are commodity grain and livestock producers of any s
