Strategic Commodities was founded by Jim Beck in 2019.  Jim believes that marketing is crucial to a farm operation reaching their long term goals.  These goals can vary from farm to farm and that is ok.  Some want to expand, some want to just get better with what they have, and others are wanting to build something that can be passed onto the next generation.  No matter what your operational goals are Jim believes that marketing is the key to reaching what you define as success.  

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Jim lives in rural Cass County, IL with his wife and four children at his childhood home.  Jim believes in family and the community.  Jim serves on the local school board and volunteers in several community events.  Growing up he wanted to farm but just didn't see the opportunity to get in.  Instead what he saw was an opportunity to help farmers.  After graduating from Western Illinois University he took a job as a crop specialist however life pulled him into the grain industry in 2005.  Jim had grown up around the grain industry his whole life as his father was a grain manager at a local Co-Op.  Jim started at the bottom as a customer service representative and quickly worked his way higher based upon his skills.  Since 2008, Jim has worked along side farmers in an advisory position and during that time has also realized just how big of an impact farmers success has on their local communities.  He firmly believes that farmers are the life blood of any rural communities.  Without them these little communities would wither away.  Coming from a small rural community himself all he wants to see is the farmers and the communities grow stronger.

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How does Strategic Commodities work with farmers in an advisory role?  Jim has collected several areas of data on the markets and he uses this data to create probabilities for market movement, probabilities for high and low timings throughout the year, and he then combines these probabilities with technical analysis.  Jim believes by providing this information to the farmer it will help make better marketing decisions.  Every year Jim develops a "mock farm" and when he makes a recommendation it goes down as a sale for the mock farm just like if you were selling for your farm.  In the end for marketing grain for your operation it doesn't matter if you sold 10% at the all time high if you sold the other 90% in the bottom one third of the marketing year.  Having the mock farm shows the power of total marketing and what really matters at the end if the average of all the sales and what revenue you bring back to the farm for your time commitment and hard work.  

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If you are interested in speaking with Jim he would be glad to have the conversation with you even if in the end you do not become a client.  If you want to reach him please call (217) 491-6611.