NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
July 27, 2000
Agricultural producers, educators, researchers and lenders can now check what it cost last year to grow sugarbeets in the Red River Valley or produce canola outside of the valley. That information and much more is available via the Internet at Web sites managed by North Dakota State University and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU).
The best source of detailed historic farm-level costs is the Farm Business Management Education Program, says Andrew Swenson, farm management specialist with the NDSU Extension Service. The 1999 enterprise analyses and whole farm financial summaries for 467 North Dakota farms outside of the Red River Valley is now available at www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/aginfo/farmmgmt/farmmgmt.htm. A summary of 211 farms in the Red River Valley (Minnesota and North Dakota) can also be accessed through the NDSU site.
Similarly, all of Minnesota’s Farm Business Management summaries are available at www.mgt.org/. Swenson says, "The Minnesota site is an excellent source of dairy enterprise data."
At both the NDSU and MnSCU sites, the number of farms providing data are indicated for the enterprise analyses. For example, 175 farms provided information for North Dakota’s beef cow-calf enterprise analysis, Swenson says. The data provide excellent performance benchmarks for farmers to compare against their own numbers.
The whole farm financial summaries report the average of all farms, as well as the average of the highest 20 percent and the lowest 20 percent of farms, based on profit. Swenson says enterprise analyses have a similar format. He adds, "There are also special reports to compare farms by gross sales and by age of operator categories."
###
Source: Andrew Swenson, (701) 231-7379
Editor: Dean Hulse, (701) 231-6136