ADM Agriculture offers smarter strategies for navigating grain markets 

“I’ll sell it when it goes back up” might sound familiar during a falling market. Emotional decision-making often drives poor outcomes, and in an environment of heightened volatility, even small misjudgements can erode margins. 

Over the last 10 years or so, price variability for major grains has reached as high as 350%, meaning timing a sale correctly can make a significant difference.  

This volatility, combined with the daily demands of running a farm, makes it easy to see why many growers either sell too soon in rising markets or wait too long in falling ones. The result is familiar: missed opportunities, lower-than-average returns, and unnecessary stress. 

Fear and greed: The emotional drivers 

Two emotions dominate market behaviour – fear and greed. Fear often compels farmers to sell too early, anxious that today’s good price might vanish tomorrow. 

Greed, meanwhile, drives the opposite behaviour: holding on too long to avoid locking in a worse price, hoping for a rebound that rarely materialises. Historical data shows that these emotional patterns are consistent and costly. 

In fact, studies reveal that most people underperform market averages, and farmers are no exception. On average, farm-gate grain sales tend to trail market benchmarks by around 1–2%. Even professionally managed pools are not totally immune, as human bias affects almost all trading decisions. 

Recognising this, ADM Agriculture set out to design a system that could overcome some of these emotional pitfalls and deliver consistent, data-driven returns for UK growers. 

Data over emotion 

ADM Agriculture’s Wheat and Barley Fund was launched in 2021 to bring structure and objectivity to grain marketing.  

It is a sell-only, algorithm-based strategy that analyses London Wheat Futures alongside more than 20 years of historical data. Its aim is simple but powerful: to outperform traditional tracker models and manual marketing by relying solely on data – not emotion. 

London Wheat Futures, the benchmark for UK physical wheat pricing, were central to the company’s research.  

By examining two decades of futures and physical market data, the team developed a significant depth of data analysis and understanding. These insights were distilled into an algorithm tested across nearly 60 variations & rules sets before being launched – and now, almost five years later, it continues to deliver strong, stable performance. 

How it works 

The fund operates across four marketing windows – harvest, October–December, January–March, and April–June – with fixed payment dates and preferential early-payment options. Farmers can choose which blocks to participate in, knowing their grain will be marketed using the same consistent, data-led logic every time. 

At its core, the system follows two simple conditional rules: 

• If prices are rising, limit sales to capture more upside 

• If prices are falling, sell strategically to protect against further losses. 

This straightforward principle is reinforced by a dynamic framework. The algorithm’s “dimmer switch” mechanism adjusts aggressiveness based on market conditions – increasing activity during periods of historically higher prices and slowing down when seasonal lows are likely, such as during harvest gluts.  

This avoids over-trading, over-fitting and focuses activity where it historically pays to act in combination with current price action. 

The results 

By eliminating emotion and applying consistent, data-driven rules, the Wheat and Barley Fund has achieved strong outcomes. The wheat and barley fund outperforms market averages around 62% of the time, delivering roughly 8% gains in “winning” years and limiting losses to around 2% in weaker markets. 

When viewed across two decades of back-tested data and four years of live trading, the strategy has outperformed the market average by approximately 5%, equivalent to around 6-7% better returns than the typical farmer marketing their own grain – all after commission. 

These results are not based on speculative trading. The fund does not engage in high-risk buy/sell activity. Instead, it focuses exclusively on optimising the timing and scale of sales within a disciplined, risk-managed structure. By doing so, it seeks to maximise realised prices while maintaining stability and predictability for participants. 

Managing risk intelligently 

While the algorithm’s principles are simple, its execution is sophisticated. Sell orders are influenced by multiple criteria – including current and historical price action, seasonal patterns, and relative pricing strength.  

The system can sell a portion of available tonnage when prices start to dip, retaining flexibility to capitalise on recoveries. 

This balanced approach avoids “all-in” trades that depend on perfect timing – a common pitfall of human decision-making. Instead, it functions more like a portfolio manager, spreading decisions across time to manage exposure and reduce downside risk. In this way, the fund behaves conservatively yet effectively, capturing opportunity while mitigating volatility. 

New kind of confidence 

For farmers, this approach offers more than financial performance; it delivers peace of mind. Knowing that marketing decisions are grounded in objective, rule-based analysis allows growers to focus on what they do best – managing their crops and operations – rather than second-guessing the market.  

A large vegetable and wheat grower noted this year that, despite the lower market prices, they had come to rely on the wheat fund as a “safe pair of hands” in their marketing portfolio over the last four years. 

Each marketing window has a clearly defined payment schedule, so cashflow planning becomes easier. Preferential early payment options offer flexibility, and growers can enter blocks depending on their storage capacity and financial requirements. 

The result is a marketing system that blends the sophistication of digital quantification with the practicality of on-farm operations. 

Role of technology in modern marketing 

The Wheat and Barley Fund represents a broader shift in agriculture: the integration of data analytics, automation, and artificial intelligence into traditional farm management. As agriculture becomes more data-rich – from yield mapping to climate modelling – grain marketing is evolving in parallel. 

ADM Agriculture’s model demonstrates how technology can complement human expertise, using data to filter out emotion and bring clarity to decision-making. As the system continues to evolve and integrate AI capabilities, it is expected to further refine its predictive accuracy and responsiveness, continuously improving outcomes for participating farms. 

Efficiency, profitability, and the future 

In today’s cost-sensitive environment, efficiency and profitability are more vital than ever. Rising input prices, environmental pressures, and market uncertainty all demand smarter approaches to managing farm income. Objective, technology-driven marketing strategies like ADM’s Wheat and Barley Fund can play a central role in meeting those challenges. 

By removing the psychological traps of fear and greed and replacing them with data-based confidence, farmers can protect their margins, strengthen long-term resilience, and ultimately build more profitable and sustainable businesses. 

For more information contact ADM Agriculture on enquiries.adm.agriculture@adm.com

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