Crop and livestock budgets for 2017 are now available to farmers and ranchers, according to Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service economists.
The budget spreadsheets help farmers and ranchers evaluate and project revenue and expenditures throughout the crop season.
There are more 200 enterprise budgets for major crops and alternative production systems available, along with 40 livestock budgets, for the 12 AgriLife Extension districts across the state.
“Our newest version of the spreadsheets now has an added feature to make multiple spreadsheet copies of any budget,” Jerry Cornforth, AgriLife Extension economist in College Station, said. “This would allow a cotton farmer to make separate cotton budgets for the new cotton varieties with their unique chemistries. Or a rancher could have a separate budget for a commercial cow herd and a registered one.”
The budgets vary by AgriLife Extension district.
Crop budgets include: canola; corn; grapefruit; hay; forage—coastal, small grain, sudangrass; malting barley; oats; melons; oranges; peaches; peanuts; pecans; rice; sesame; silage; sorghum; soybeans; sugarcane; sunflowers; vegetables; and wheat.
Livestock spreadsheets are also available for cow-calf, sheep and goat and summer or winter stocker calf operations.
Cornforth said the spreadsheets serve as a good risk management tool, allowing farmers and ranchers to evaluate potential changes to their operations based on a number of factors affecting profit or loss.
“Producers can make changes to revenue or cost estimates and quickly see the impact on the potential profit or loss for a crop or stocker enterprise,” Cornforth said. “These spreadsheets give a producer the ability to evaluate many ‘what if’ scenarios quickly, hopefully allowing them to achieve better returns and reduce the overall risk to the operation. Budgets can be used throughout the growing season to keep tabs on production costs with profit/ loss estimates being recalculated as costs change.”
The spreadsheets, Build Your Own Budgets, are available at http://bit.ly/2mugoLH.