My Grain Exchange (MGX) has transitioned from a timed online grain auction website to a 24/7 online marketplace for farmers to buy & sell grain easier.
MGX states in a news release the website is "now more open, flexible, and farmer friendly than ever."
“Our mission has always been to help Western Canadian farmers with price discovery,” says Merv Berscheid, Founder of My Grain Exchange. “This latest update is a direct response to farmer feedback. They want control, visibility, and simplicity — and now they’ve got all three.”
Among the changes is all inventory listings are publicly viewable, "giving buyers direct access to browse available on-farm inventory -- without the back-and-forth phone calls" meaning "farmers can passively market their grain while gaining access to a wider pool of local and regional buyers."
Luke Derkson, Manager of Operations and Development for MGX, noted the removal of a mandatory sample analysis as another change to the website, allowing producers to "be able to take advantage of market fluctuations quickly." Previously, any producer wanting to list their grain on the site had to have a third-party grade attached, said Derkson.
"What we've done as part of that is we've launched a multi-grade bid system, which is essentially farmers and buyers alike will understand it as pending sample approval," he explained using canola as an example.
"So let's say a buyer is looking for canola number one and number two, he can put two different bids down with prices, and then he can make that bid pending sample approval, so if the farmer accepts the prices for one or two different grades, he can then accept and then that trade will go into a pending sample approval and the sample will go directly to the buyer. Then if it makes a grade that the producer has or that the buyer has bid on, whichever grade it is, the price will be activated, so that's really been a major change."
Another addition is forward contracting or new crop contracting, including Act of God and deferred delivery contract options, something Derkson hopes farmers and buyers will take advantage of during the off-season. With this feature, Derkson says producers can "post their acres and the commodity that they're looking to grow in the spring."
"So if you've got 500 acres that you're not sure what to do with or you haven't contracted it out yet, you can basically post your acres up on our new crop section and buyers can then bid with their new crop prices. There's no pressure for a farmer to accept anything, but it's simply going to be a way for them to gather new crop prices and do some crop planning in the off-season." he added.
People will also notice a buyer management tool that allows users to filter who is licensed by the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC) and the option to "block any buyers that they're not interested in doing business with", according to Derkson.
"The whole platform is anonymous, so bids are coming in and you don't know exactly who they're from, but what we're doing is we're trying to give the producers a little bit of control up front before they start receiving bids to maybe block someone that they're not interested in doing business with. If they're not interested in doing business with companies that aren't CGC licensed, it's going to allow them to just basically block them from seeing their inventory. Although they might not be able to see who the bid is from, they can tell and they can control who is able to bid and I think that's going to go a long way to just add security and control over who farmers are planning to do business with."
MGX at Ag in Motion
MGX was one of the more than 600 booths at last week's Ag in Motion near Langham, Saskatchewan.
Derkson and Berscheid were located near the Scotiabank Farm Pavilion, showing off the latest features of the website. Derkson was happy with the turnout and got multiple people to sign-up.
"We've been running demos all week and, you know, usually by the end of the demo, they say, 'Hey, yeah, let's get us signed up. What's the cost or what do I have to do?' And the answer is nothing. We're a free marketing platform. The only time we take anything is when successful trades are done, so farmers are really liking that. It's a good way to passively market grain, and, yeah, we've had really good sign-ups, really good feedback."
