MORE than 80 women converged on Esperance recently to attend the annual SEPWA Ladies Day.
The event focused on 'Celebrating Agriculture in the Year of the Farmer' and the role women play in rural and regional communities.
While a majority of the speakers were ladies from around the State, there were a few bold men who braved the room full of women to discuss risk management and grain marketing.
AWB grain marketer Christopher Tyson and Rabobank global financial market representative for WA Andrew Tasker talked to the group about how to manage business risks to maximise opportunities through grain marketing.
Both agreed setting price targets and having simple marketing plans were the way forward for WA growers.
In a year that has seen wheat prices as low as $250 a tonne to more than $300/t, they also said knowing the market drivers was imperative when it came to hedging grain.
"At the start of the year prices were not great," Mr Tasker said.
"But as the year progressed we have been able to make a few dollars out of someone else's bad luck (the US drought affecting its corn crop).
"In the last few years corn prices and production have been a big driver of wheat prices."
Mr Tasker added corn was never a big factor for wheat prices until the ethanol story came into play in 2006 and had gradually been the new consumer of corn.
"Wheat has traditionally always been worth more than corn," he said.
"But as the ethanol story started to bite, and there has been the added production issues with corn this year, the two have started to join together.
"Last year and this year, wheat was very much a corn story, even to the point where corn was worth more than wheat."
Mr Tyson agreed and added because of the focus on corn, the global wheat situation had generally been glossed over.
"Wheat is having big issues around the world," he said.
"There are problems in the Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Russia and we aren't far off Russia banning exports again.
"We are likely to see everyone look to Australia for their wheat, especially South Australia and WA.
"Wheat is definitely coming back on the radar."
Mr Tyson also said barley could be the golden crop of the year.
"Barley continually loses acres around the world," he said.
"Because of the production issues in the Ukraine, a lot of that export base will be filled from WA, and there are a lot of possibilities to make money out of it, especially as so much is grown in the Esperance zone."
Because of the big difference in prices throughout the year, Mr Tasker said farmers' grain marketing options had changed.
When prices were lower earlier on he said Rabobank had seen an increased number of put options taken out which protected farmers against prices going any lower while allowing them to cash in on any rises in the market.
"But now that prices are higher I would encourage people to start thinking about next year," he said.
"While you don't want to get carried away and introduce production risks price averaging can and should extend over multiple years.
"It is good to have a marketing plan and this can extend into next year by hedging the year's prices on next season's grain.
"It just gives you an element of certainty."