Find a consistent client base for your hay

Making dry hay isn’t easy, especially in the humid regions. For many who choose this line of work, selling hay can be equally as challenging.

Whenever I visit a hay farm — and there’s been a lot of them — I always ask about the marketing approach. Selling hay is unlike marketing any other agricultural commodity. You don’t just wake up in the morning and decide to sell a load of hay to the co-op like you do corn. Given this reality, you either have to hope your market comes to you or you have to find your market. A third option is to work through a broker.

Starting out in the hay business, growers often have no recourse than to place a few ads, erect a “Hay for Sale” sign, and hope for the best. In times of short hay supplies, this can be effective, but it’s still wrought with risk given that you don’t usually know your client or their financial situation. When hay supplies are abundant, as they are in 2024, moving hay in this manner may prove to be more difficult. Many buyers will be looking for “bargains.”

One downside to this lumber yard strategy is that potential clients will show up anytime of the day or night to load hay. I’ve heard a number of farmers complain about this aspect. Another problem deals with those clients who only want enough hay to feed their horses for a week, and then they return the next week for another meager number of bales.

The risks and uncertainties associated with the “bale it and they will come” approach leads most serious hay producers to establish a consistent client base for the majority of their production. It may take a few years for this to occur, but such a marketing strategy is where most successful commercial hay operations usually end up.

Many advantages

A big advantage of a client base consisting of repeat customers is that you get to know their expectations and needs. As such, when the truck is loaded, you know your client will be happy. Also, based on past experience, you know their check will be good.

When the client base is consistent, it makes it easier to budget. An annual client is usually willing to pay more than market price in down years if they’re given the chance to purchase at below market price during short-forage years. In other words, a more consistent price range is maintained from year to year, which benefits both the buyer and seller, and the selling price can be determined before the growing season.

Even with a consistent client base, there are a number of strategies available for moving the hay relative to timing and trucking. This past summer, I was on a Minnesota hay farm where the grower always wanted to ensure that his inventory was out of the barn before winter. Over the years, he had built a client base that made this goal a reality.

Trucking is also done in a variety of ways. Some hay farms truck everything themselves or take care of hiring a trucker, others only truck themselves within state and hire out for long-distance hauls, while some farms leave trucking arrangements entirely up to the buyer. All of these strategies can work.

A consistent hay buyer doesn’t have to be the end user. Many hay farms use brokers, export buyers, or horse track hay buyers as their primary clientele. In all of these cases, a good relationship needs to be built. Working with a middleman offers the benefit of not having to deal with multiple end users and being able to sell hay in larger bulk quantities. There is also less risk of nonpayment. Of course, the broker or buyer is going to also need to be compensated, usually selling the hay for a higher price than what they paid the hay farmer.

Keeping clients

Maintaining a client base can be as challenging as building one. Most hay buyers have their own criteria for the sensory or chemical attributes of the hay they purchase. Of course, some are more demanding than others, but this has always been the case.

One interesting trend I’ve seen among many hay buyers, especially those with horses, is that they are making package demands in addition to those concerning quality. Most notably, they want their small hay bales packaged into easy-to-move bundles. This has resulted in the growing popularity of in-field or stationary bundlers for producers of small square bales and bale processors for those who make large square bales. Ironically, we now find ourselves making small bales into big bales (bundles) and big bales into bundled small bales.

No one marketing strategy fits everyone. Much depends on your location and regional market for hay. However, it is clear that most successful hay farms almost always have in place a clientele who they can trust and will be back year after year.