A long-standing problem in agricultural marketing is the question of "optimal" marketing patterns for a seasonally produced crop. When futures markets exist, agricultural economists have often recommended their use to improve marketing decisions, but farmer use of futures as an aid to marketing...

Futures markets provide contemporaneous price quotations for a constellation of contracts, with maturities 30 or more months in the future, and a large literature exists about interpreting these prices as forecasts. It is often preferable to think of futures markets as determining a price level...