Mastering Grain Marketing Challenges with Susan Stroud

About this episode

Susan Stroud, founder of the "No Bull Ag" newsletter and a 15-year veteran of cash grain merchandising (ADM, Consolidated Grain and Barge), discusses the psychology of grain marketing — why producers treat unrealized future gains as losses, and why marketing decisions are more emotional than agronomic ones. She details her background buying grain at competitive St. Louis river elevators, a recent small-plane tour of the drought-stricken Mississippi/Ohio river system to document historic low water levels, and how U.S. biofuel policy (ethanol, renewable diesel, and emerging sustainable aviation fuel) is reshaping corn and soybean demand and shifting export competitiveness against Brazil. She also describes her newsletter's growth from an internal ADM/CGB market recap into a paid subscription product read by hedge funds, her "connect the dots" writing process, and balancing entrepreneurship with early motherhood. Closes with her recent name change post-divorce and an upcoming Panama Canal trip tied to future ag-focused group tours.

Key moments

• Cold open — grain marketing as an emotional "head game" where producers perceive selling before a price rise as a loss, even when profitable.
• The efficient-market principle — if a piece of news is being discussed publicly, it's already priced in; markets move on 2-3 week-out forecasts, not present conditions.
• Small-plane tour of the drought-stricken Mississippi/Ohio river system — grounded barges left over from the prior year's low water, dredge boats actively reshaping the channel, described as looking "like the Sahara Desert."
• The inland waterway system as an underappreciated American logistics advantage, now being reshaped by domestic biofuel policy that redirects corn away from export competitiveness with Brazil.
• Middle (~38-46%): U.S. biofuel policy arc — ethanol (RFS, ~2008) → renewable diesel (California's low-carbon fuel standard) → emerging sustainable aviation fuel, with a striking efficiency stat (1.7 gallons ethanol to make 1 gallon of sustainable aviation fuel) and scale reality (last year's total U.S. SAF production could power the domestic jet fleet for roughly six hours).
• Susan's self-described "connect the dots" analytical method — an anecdote about tracing Coca-Cola's stock drop to industrial aluminum use to high-fructose corn syrup's rank as the 4th largest use of U.S. corn.
• The inaugural "No Bull" conference at Ballpark Village — deliberately breaking from siloed industry-conference norms (all-elevator or all-producer crowds) to mix grain companies, financiers, farmers, seed/insurance, rail/barge, and ethanol/soy-processing attendees under a "next generation agriculture" theme.
• Reflection on balancing a four-newsletters-a-week writing cadence with early motherhood — waking at 4am, cutting content short for a Paw Patrol movie outing.

Notable quotes

“Let's say you sold corn today and it was $5 and it was a fantastic sale. And if the market would go up 10 cents tomorrow, you would look at it as you just lost 10 cents. Now you didn't lose 10 cents... Marketing grain is a head game.”

“If we're discussing it now, it's probably already priced in... the market is moving based on how those forecasts are changing. What's here and now is already long gone.”

“If for all the sustainable aviation fuel that was produced in the US last year, it would've only powered the US jet fleet for six hours.”

“It almost looks like a lake. It's too still... these random barges sprinkled [like] the Sahara Desert.”