By: Dianne Shoemaker, Extension Dairy Specialist, Ag Educator
Total cost of production per cwt, feed cost per cwt, net farm income per cow. Direct costs, total costs, and net returns per acre, per bushel, per ton of crops grown. These are important numbers for every farm as they monitor profitability, develop and monitor risk management plans, and look for opportunities. These are also numbers that allow one farm to compare their production and financial management with similar farms.
How does your farm stack up against all of your competition? against all farms your size? against the top 20% (based on return to assets) of both groups? These are not difficult questions to answer if you become involved in the National Farm Benchmarking project this year.
Ohio is participating in this project led by the Center for Farm Financial Management at the University of Minnesota. While Ohio regularly contributes some farm data to the national database, we have the opportunity to expand the number of farms participating in financial analysis this year.
Through grant funding from the National Farm Benchmarking project, we are able to offer a full 2010 financial analysis, including enterprise analysis to 100 farms. Field crop, dairy, livestock, poultry and horticultural crop farms are welcome to participate. Analyses will be completed by either Extension or Farm Business Planning and Analysis (FBPA) personnel.
Participants in the project will work with their Extension or FBPA consultant to complete their farm’s analysis by June 2011. Maintaining each farm’s confidentiality is critical and farm analyses are coded before submission to the database where data is only shared as group data where individual farms are not identifiable.
In July, Ohio’s farms are invited to participate in a meeting to review Ohio’s farm business summary and learn how to use an individual farm’s analysis, Ohio’s data and the national database to enhance their farm’s financial and risk management.
We invite and encourage you to participate in Ohio’s dairy summary for 2010. This is a prime opportunity with the benchmarking grant covering the $600 per farm cost of analysis. Questions? Contact Dianne Shoemaker at (330) 257-3377 to discuss this opportunity.
Extension and FBPA consultants who can help you with this project include:
Dianne Shoemaker- Wayne County Extension, 330-264-8722 or shoemaker.3@osu.edu
Thomas Weygandt- FBPA, Buckeye Career Center, 330-465-8019 or tweyg@embarqmail.com
Tom Ackerman- FBPA, Wilmington, 937-382-4760 or tackerman32@gmail.com
Glen Arnold- Putnam County Extension, 419-523-6294 or arnold.2@osu.edu
Luke Baker- FBPA, Henry County, 419-966-7330 or klbaker@henry-net.com
Chris Bruynis- Wyandot County Extension, 419-294-4931 or bruynis.1@osu.edu
Bruce Clevenger- Defiance County Extension, 419-782-4771 or clevenger.10@osu.edu
Ann Gano McCleary-FBPA, Buckeye Career Center, 330-339-7511 or agano@bright.net
Don Garrett- FBPA, Miami Valley, 937-286-047 or don@agdatasolutions.com
Wes Haun- Logan County Extension, 937-599-4227or haun.17@osu.edu
Jeff McCutcheon- Morrow County Extension, 419-947-1070 or mccutcheon.30@osu.edu
Heather Neikirk- Portage County Extension, 330-296-6432 or neikirk.2@osu.edu
Julia Woodruff- Erie County Extension, 419-627-7631 or woodruff.94@osu.edu