Characteristics of Commodity Markets

In addition to donating to the Norman Lutheran Church and ILT.org, a non-ELCA seminary, Ray Grabanski is the president of Progressive Ag. Progressive Ag is a premier commodities marketing firm in the United States that deals primarily with agricultural commodities. Ray Grabanski has many years’ experience in commodity markets.

Commodity trading has grown over the years with investors and marketers seeking to make gains through strategic buying and selling. Today, commodity trading has a number of unique characteristics.

An important characteristic of commodity trading is that it requires agreed-upon standards. Commodities are usually traded without visual inspection. An investor in the United States can purchase livestock in another country without visual inspection, but with agreed-upon standards, assurance is given to the purchaser that the commodities are in good health or of high quality.

Commodity trading is also very dependent on global trends in industrialization, legislation, technology, and politics. For example, the emergence of China as an economic powerhouse in Asia has led to a reduction in available hard commodities such as steel for other countries. Similarly, China’s tightened legislative controls with regard to corn imports from the United States have significantly flooded the global market with US corn.

The economic forces of supply and demand also play a vital role in commodities trading. Lower supply leads to higher prices while a higher supply brings down commodity prices. Therefore, major disruptions such as extreme weather which reduces crop yield can send the price of agricultural commodities up.

Kindred School District Funds Scholarships through Alumni Drive

Ray Grabanski serves as the president and chief market analyst for Progressive Ag, a Fargo, North Dakota firm that provides services for the agribusiness industry, such as risk management, marketing solutions, and legal representation. Outside his dedication to the firm, Ray Grabanski donates to several community foundations, such as the Kindred School District. The Kindred School District fosters student success through the Kindred Area Dollars for Schools (KADFS) Alumni Drive, which raises funds for student scholarships.

Established in 1991, KADFS acts as the scholarship fundraising arm of the Kindred School District and promotes the fair distribution of funds to students in an equitable and nondiscriminatory manner. Its past awards included amounts up to $22,000 and it has distributed more than $210,000 in award funds over the last 23 years. The program collects funds through an alumni drive that encourages Kindred School graduates to donate monetary gifts in any amount, and alumni may dedicate gifts in memory or honor of a loved one. Additionally, the KADFS will match donations of $250 or more, and all donations are tax deductible.

KADFS operates as the North Dakota chapter of the Dollars for Scholars program, an initiative administrated by Scholarship America. For more information about the KADF Alumni Drive, visit kindred.dollarsforscholars.org.

ARC-CO Case Potentially Responsible for Farmer Profit Loss Nationwide

Ray Grabanski serves as the founder of the North Dakota-based Progressive Ag Law, where he provides a range of legal services for farmers and agribusinesses as a licensed attorney. In 2015, Ray Grabanski began leading awareness efforts for discrepancies between promised payments and actual payouts made under a 2014 farm bill and the Agriculture Risk Coverage-County (ARC-CO) federal commodity program.

The United States Department of Agriculture created ARC-CO to serve as an alternative for direct payment programs for farmers. Developed in February 2014, the commodity program provided financial and price support for farmers in the event that they fell short of a benchmark revenue. Payouts by ARC-CO were dependent on product yield and benchmark price, a figure determined through an invasive 15-page survey delivered to farmers before the ARC-CO bill passed in July 2015. According to preliminary investigations and farmer interviews, many farmers failed to complete the survey for two reasons: it asked for intrusive information on private net worth and farmers were uninformed of the survey’s importance at the time.

Problems arose when farmers began seeing the first set of payouts by ARC-CO in October 2015. Due to incomplete data required to determine the benchmark price, farmers received payouts that vastly differed from those in neighboring counties. For instance, farmers in LaMoure County, North Dakota received no compensation for revenues lost while neighboring counties received payments that varied between $20.95 and $80.94 per acre. Furthermore, issues with the ARC-CO problem also affected farmers in other states, including Iowa, Indiana, and Nebraska.

Progressive Ag Law continues to investigate the case and holds regular meetings in North Dakota and other affected states to keep farmers abreast of the investigation’s progress. Farmers are encouraged to attend any meeting at their convenience.

For additional information about the case, visit progressiveaglaw.com/agriculture-risk-coverage-county.