©2020 1
Competitive Farming Worksheet
Name _________________________________________________
Step
1: The Gamble
Leave your bag of M&Ms
®
unopened. Predict how many of each color of M&Ms
®
candy you will get
in your bag. You will have approximately 55-60 M&Ms
®
in the bag.
Blue______
__ Brown________ Red________ Orange________ Yellow________ Green________
Ste
p 2: Pre-Selling
Would you like to sell your corn (M&Ms
®
) before you harvest (open your bag) and get a premium
price for your commodity? You can pre-sell now for $3.50, or for $3.20 once you open your bag.
Pre-sold corn:
Place the number you wish to sell in the first blank. Multiply to see what you could make.
Blue:
X
$3.50
=
Brown:
X
$3.50
=
Red:
X
$3.50
=
Orange:
X
$3.50
=
Yellow:
X
$3.50
=
Green:
X
$3.50
=
Step
3: The Harvest
Open your bag and place all the M&Ms
®
on the surface in front of you. Count how many actual
M&Ms
®
you have of each color and enter the totals below.
Blue______
__ Brown________ Red________ Orange________ Yellow________ Green________
Now
subtract what you have pre-sold from your actual harvest and write the new number below. If
you have over-sold all or part of your harvest in Step 2, you will have a negative number in the
blank.
Actual
Harvest
Pre-Sold
Amount
Blue:
=
Brown:
=
Red:
=
Orange:
=
Yellow:
=
Green:
=
Total from Step 2: $_____________
©2020 2
Step 4: Selling
Take the information you obtained in Step 3 and use it below to find out how much money you
made on your corn (M&Ms
®
) that was not pre-sold. Only write down the positive numbers; skip the
negative numbers until Step 7.
Blue:
X
$3.20
=
Brown:
X
$3.20
=
Red:
X
$3.20
=
Orange:
X
$3.20
=
Yellow:
X
$3.20
=
Green:
X
$3.20
=
Step 5
: Before and After Harvest Totals
Add together the totals you made either from pre-selling your corn (M&Ms
®
) at $3.50 or selling
your corn (M&Ms
®
) after harvest at $3.20.
Total from Step 2:
$
Total from Step 4:
$
Total Made:
$
Step
6: Grand Total
Did you oversell any corn (M&Ms
®
)? (circle one) YES NO
If no, write how much you made below from step 5.
Grand Total (from Step 5) $________________________
Step 7: The Cost of Overselling
If you oversold your corn (M&Ms
®
), you will have to buy more corn to make up the difference. The
grain elevator will also charge handling fees on top of the base price of the corn you buy. Write all
the negative numbers (from Step 3) for each color of M&Ms
®
you oversold in the blanks below.
Write the sum of these numbers in the Total Oversold blank, then find out how much you have to
pay to buy more corn.
Blue________ Brown________ Red________ Orange________ Yellow________ Green________
Total Oversold:
X
$3.70
Step
8: Grand Total
Now, subtract the total amount you oversold in Step 7 from the total in Step 5 to find out your
grand total.
Total made (from Step 5):
Total oversold (from Step 7):
Grand Total: $
Total from Step 4: $
_____________
©2020 3
M&M
®
GRAPH
Name__________________________________________________
E
= Estimate A = Actual
E
A
E
A
E
A
E
A
E
A
E
A
15
14
13
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
blue brown red orange yellow green