The message is clear: farms must know their costs of production for corn, soybeans, hay, milk, meat, and any other commodities they produce. Why? To make informed marketing, production, and financial management decisions that contribute to the overall profitability of the whole farm business.
To help Ohio’s farm families achieve financial success in today’s challenging marketplace, the Ohio Farm Business Analysis Program is expanding our capacity to serve farmers across Ohio. Thanks to a USDA/NIFA grant, four additional Farm Business Analysis Technicians are ready to help farmers complete analysis of their 2017 business year.
Farm business analysis is a tool that can be applied to any farm, regardless of size, crop, or livestock enterprise. Financial management is critical to the success of every farm business, and with analysis, farms are able to better understand the numbers behind their profits or losses.
To complete a farm’s analysis, we start with beginning and ending balance sheets from the most recent business year. To fill in the year between the balance sheets, we provide input forms that cover all income, expenses, capital purchases, sales, and enterprise information.
Farmers complete a whole farm analysis and may choose to do enterprise analysis. They receive their farm’s analysis and enterprise summaries that include their costs of production per acre, per unit (bu, ton, cwt, head) as well as machinery costs per acre. At the conclusion of each year’s analysis, farmers receive Ohio summary data, along with personalized benchmark reports that help them quickly identify areas of strength and concern.
All farm data is treated and handled with the utmost care to preserve confidentiality. Farms that complete analysis also contribute to the database of Ohio farm financial and production data. Ohio farm data is used for teaching, research, extension education and policy decision making.
- better serve Ohio’s farmers, the Farm Business Analysis Program has added four new Farm Business Analysis Technicians serving central and western Ohio. These technicians work out of the County Extension Offices in Defiance, Licking Miami and Pickaway counties, and will also work with farms in surrounding counties. We welcome these new technicians and encourage you to contact the technician nearest your farm to get started on Farm Business Analysis:
Defiance County 419.782.4771 Clint Schroeder schroeder.307@osu.edu
Licking County 740.670.5315 Dave Grum grum.1@osu.edu
Mahoning County 330.533.5538 Cristina Benton benton.132@osu.edu
Miami County 937.440.3945 Sharon Harris harris.2835@osu.edu
Pickaway County 740.474.7534 Trish Levering levering.43@osu.edu
Thanks to the USDA-NIFA Farm Business Analysis grant, the cost for a farm to complete an analysis for the 2017 business year is $100. To learn more about farm business analysis, contact Dianne Shoemaker or Haley Shoemaker at 330-533-5538 or email at shoemaker.3@osu.edu or shoemaker.306@osu.edu. See past farm business summaries at http://farmprofitability.osu.edu.