Patent ID: 7844475

Claim:
A computer-assisted method of providing agricultural marketing services to independent agricultural producers to assist in raising income of the agricultural producers, comprising: developing written agricultural marketing action plans for the agricultural producers, the agricultural marketing action plans requiring updated marketing information; tying financial obligations of the agricultural producers to the use of the written agricultural marketing action plans such that the agricultural producers are required to commit to using the written agricultural marketing plans as a condition for receiving financing; electronically providing marketing information to the agricultural producers in order to update the written agricultural marketing action plans; wherein the updated marketing information comprises probabilities of price targets; wherein the step of developing written agricultural marketing action plans for each of the agricultural producers comprises (a) eliciting information from the producer; (b) performing a financial assessment for an agricultural business of the independent producer; (c) determining a financial assessment score based on the financial assessment; (d) calculating a marketing financial risk score wherein the marketing financial risk score is defined as a numeric value describing financial risks related to markets and income of each agricultural enterprise associated with the agricultural business; (e) determining pre-sell quantities using the financial assessment score, the marketing financial risk score and a price risk associated with a commodity market; (f) calculating a level of crop revenue insurance to assure a predetermined level of income from sale of predetermined pre-sell quantities of crops for use in meeting the financial obligations, such that the financing is underwritten by pre-selling and the pre-selling is underwritten by the level of crop revenue insurance; (g) forming a plan of action for agricultural marketing which makes decisions based on the marketing information, the financial assessment, the marketing financial risk score, the pre-sell quantities, and the level of crop revenue insurance.