Agriculture Empowering Indiana Farmers: Grain Market Navigator Program Launches February 2026

Jan 12, 2026

By John E. Woodmansee

Indiana farmers seeking to strengthen their grain marketing strategies during uncertain economic times now have a powerful resource: the Grain Market Navigator Program. This four-session Extension series is designed to provide the knowledge and tools farmers need to confidently navigate grain markets and make informed decisions. This series will be held from 6:30-8:30 P.M. Eastern on Feb. 17, Feb. 24, Mar. 3, and Mar. 10 at sites across Indiana and virtually.

Topics covered will include grain marketing terminology, differences between cash and future markets, real-world examples, current market trends and projections, and insights from grain buyers. A keynote speaker will be simulcast to every workshop location during each meeting, with time for questions and a hands-on activity for participants.

“Marketing risk is one of the biggest challenges farmers face today, said Jenna Nees, Purdue Extension – Putnam County Ag & Natural Resource Educator. “This program gives producers the tools to understand grain markets, evaluate different outlets, and make informed decisions about contracts. It’s about building confidence and flexibility in a rapidly changing marketplace.

This program will be hosted at 12 locations across Indiana. Those locations include: LaPorte, Jasper, White, Elkhart, Whitley, Huntington, Carroll, Putnam, Johnson, Knox, Dubois, and Spencer Counties. If you are unable to join us at an in-person location, you are welcome to join our virtual cohort. The Whitley County location will be Northeastern REMC, 4901 E. Park 30 Dr., Columbia City, IN 46725.

Source : purdue.edu

Video: From Students to Solutions | On The Brink: Season 2, Episode 14

Ask Canada’s most decorated soybean breeder his favourite part of the job and he doesn’t name a single variety. He names the students.

Istvan Rajcan is a professor of soybean breeding and genetics in the Department of Plant Agriculture at the University of Guelph, where he has run the soybean breeding program for 28 and a half years. In that time he has developed 87 soybean cultivars, published 140 refereed papers and trained 51 graduate students. In 2025 he received the Public Sector Impact Award from the National Association for Plant Breeding.

He is also worried. In this episode he says Canada is at a crossroads, pointing to recent government cuts to plant breeding programs and to the facilities that support them. His prescription is structural. "Plant breeding funding formula has to be a long-term one," he says.

The formula he is defending is the public-private matching arrangement his program runs on. Private seed companies fund the work, provincial or federal money matches it, and the combined pool stretches each dollar further than either source could alone. At the National Association for Plant Breeding annual meeting in June, he says American public breeders were often surprised at how well that collaboration works in Canada.

He also describes how the people entering plant breeding have changed. His early graduate students came mostly from farms. More recently they include, in his words, "city kids who just became excited about genetics."

Topics covered:

Why public-private plant breeding funding in Canada needs a long-term

commitment rather than a larger one

How matching private seed company investment with provincial and federal

dollars multiplies research capacity

How the graduate student pipeline into plant breeding has shifted from

farm kids to city kids