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Web tools help ag operations
Many farmers use a computer in their operation.
They check the latest commodity prices, weather patterns and occasional football score. But, few actually use it to budget for the coming year.
Budgets can help producers answer questions like what is more profitable, says Barry Ward, an Ohio State University Extension ag economist and leader of production business management. Corn? Soybeans? Wheat?
As producers face lower commodity prices and higher input costs, now is the time to ensure your farm remains profitable in the days ahead. Finding help for this daunting task takes just a few clicks of the mouse.
Universities across the country have developed free on-line budgeting tools to help livestock and crop producers make better decisions via user-friendly computer programs.
Livestock Enterprise Budgets - Helps project costs and returns to a farm operation. It offers 12 budgets, including farrow-to-finish, finishing feeder pigs, backgrounding steers, dairy and sheep.
Crop Enterprise Budgets - Helps identify costs and returns of various crop operations. Includes corn, soybeans, alfalfa, vegetables, pasture, as well as, organic farming budgets.
These budgets can be found at www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/decisionaids.html.
Crop Budget Generator - Helps build customized crop budgets and evaluates leases, pre-loaded budgets for Missouri crops: soybeans, corn, corn silage, double-crop beans, wheat, straw, and grain sorghum.
Forage Budget Generator - Helps build customized forage budgets and includes pre-loaded budgets for alfalfa, crabgrass, fescue seed, fescue-ladino and orchard-grass-red clover. This program estimates costs of production for seed, pasture, small square bales, large round bales and/or haylage.
All of these programs are available at www.fapri.missouri.edu in the Farmer’s Corner section.
Ohio Corn, Soybean and Wheat Enterprise Budgets - These enterprise budgets are compiled on downloadable Excel spreadsheets that enable users to input their own production and price levels to calculate their own budget numbers.
The enterprise budgets can be found at: http://aede.osu.edu/ Programs/FarmManagement/ Budgets.
Looking for more than just budgeting help? Here are some links that offer analysis on crop rotation, livestock and insurance quandaries.
Grain Delivery Model - Helps analyze three delivery points simultaneously using the data you provide for each location and some basic assumptions about how long you will store the crop. You also can calculate the cost/benefit of storing grain vs. selling at harvest.
Crop Rotation Tool - Helps to make planting decisions for the year to come. This spreadsheet helps determine the most profitable rotation for your farm given your estimated yield, commodity prices and input costs.
Default budgets are available for four geographic regions, using these numbers as a starting point; you can modify any one of the categories on the budget to fit your own operation.
Crop Insurance Decision Tool - This tool is essentially five tools rolled into one. To begin, it can quote premiums for 7 crops and 26 states across the Midwest and Southeast.
The tool also can estimate payments for the year to come, display historical insurance performance for every county in Illinois, and calculate a yield trend for the county and your individual farm.
All of these tools and more are available at www.farmdoc.uiuc. edu/fasttools/index.asp.
Grain store/sell decision aid - Estimates costs of handling and storing dry grain in on-farm or commercial storage for use in making marketing decisions.
Replacement Cow Decision Tool (CowCulator) - Helps evaluate the decision to purchase a replacement heifer using long-range beef prices.
All of these programs are available at www.fapri.missouri.edu in the Farmer’s Corner section.
Leasing and Land Values - Five spreadsheets offer ways to determine rent for cropland, pasture, grain storage, livestock building and livestock share agreements
These spreadsheets can be found at www.extension.iastate. edu/agdm/decisionaids.html.
The Value of Manure - This worksheet shows the amount, and cost/lb unit of N, P, and K in various livestock manure. Simply select your fertilizer types and type your cost per ton (Yellow cells), and the tool automatically adjusts the value of the manure.
This Web tool is at http://aede.osu.edu/programs/ FarmManagement/. Click on Computer Programs to access this worksheet.