The statistical forecasting efficiency of new crop corn and soybean futures is the topic of frequent academic inquiry. However, few studies address the usefulness of these forecasts to economic agents? decision making. Each year Central Illinois producers are faced with the decision to plant...

The traditional necessary condition for futures market inefficiency is the existence of alternative forecasting methods that produce mean squared forecast errors smaller than the futures market. Here, a more exacting requirement for futures market efficiency is proposed - forecast encompassing....