Do you consider yourself an astute buyer, a smart shopper, a wheeler-dealer?

If so, we want to recognize you by sharing your strategic buying tips and ideas within these pages. Send us your best buy, and if our judges think that it's a strong tip, we will ship a Smart Buyer coffee mug complete with our logo to a coffee pot near you. And we'll pay $100 cash for every idea, with example, published in Farm Industry News.

To stir your buying thoughts, here are a few examples of ideas we might publish within our many stories on input buying.

Strong ideas: v Buy products that don't require any service directly off the Internet. (You must explain specifics of such a purchase and why it worked for you.)

v Group together with other farmers to exchange input purchase price information so you can leverage that knowledge with suppliers.

v Send bids to area retailers to get the best input prices.

Weak idea: v Buy seed or crop protection early for discounts.

To enter, simply write up your tip or idea (complete with your name, address, phone number and e-mail address) and either e-mail it to fin@intertec.com or send it to Farm Industry News, Smart Buyer, 7900 International Dr., Suite 300, Minneapolis, MN 55425. Enter as often as you like, and do it today.

Thanks for your tips and expertise.