Production Practices and Farmer Profitability
Commercial fruit and vegetable farmers are often considered gardeners. However, what sets farmers apart from gardeners is that farmers are operating a business and must be profitable. Whole farm or crop specific budgets help fruit and vegetable farmers determine appropriate size, crops, equipment needs, and pricing.
Resources
Market-Based Enterprise Budgets Toolkit
This decision-making tool includes 10 Excel workbooks for a variety of vegetables commonly grown in Iowa. The purposed of the toolkit is to guide small-scale farmers when analyzing net returns. Marketing costs can dramatically change the profitability of an enterprise or the whole farm. This research focuses on helping farmers account for marketing costs in order to calculate true net return per enterprise and boost profitability. Farmers can download any or all workbooks for free, and enter their own data to calculate profitability per enterprise. Specific crops include: transplants, asparagus, high-tunnel mixed greens, greenhouse basil, greenhouse butterhead lettuce, high-tunnel tomatoes, field green beans, sweet peppers, scallions, and field carrots. Released January 2020.
Iowa Vegetable Production Budgets
This enterprise budgeting tool can help vegetable growers estimate the costs and revenue associated with producing a product. Growers with multiple enterprises can use total sales as the basis for estimating the cost of planting, growing, harvesting, and handling key crops with a series of worksheets. Specific crops include: Asparagus, basil, green beans, carrots, eggplant, garlic, salad greens, snow peas, potatoes, sweet potatoes, raspberries, strawberries, cherry and heirloom tomatoes.
High tunnel profitability for vegetable production with the systems and budgets are described in this publication. The information is based on the detailed production records of five farmers growing crops such as bell peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, herbs, lettuce, and tomatoes.
This program exists to open the door to relationships and resources relevant to the pursuit of sustainability for Iowa’s smaller-scale, entrepreneurial farm enterprises. Find links to useful resources on business planning, alternative and specialty crops, as well as niche livestock. Sign up to receive the quarterly Acreage Living Newsletter on Iowa small farms and sustainability issues.
https://www.extension.iastate.edu/smallfarms
This workbook provides growers with information to use high tunnels effectively, enhance productivity and net income, and learn from the experience of other high tunnel users, thus enabling them to product high yields of quality horticultural crops.
Find on ISU Extension and Outreach Store
If you haven’t checked out the center’s resources yet, go now! You’ll find information about sustainable production practices, marketing, and food systems.
This manual discusses operational and organizational issues related to sharing farm machinery for fruit and vegetable production, and highlights various options for sharing, identifies potential problems associated with sharing resources, and explains the strategies for resolving them.
Find on ISU Extension and Outreach Store
And don’t forget you can always call the Hortline for information on lawn, garden, and landscape plant questions! 515-294-3108, 10am to noon and 1pm-4.30pm Monday through Friday.
Iowa Market Maker
Connecting markets and quality food sources from farm and fishery to fork. Whether you are a producer looking to reach new markets; a buyer wanting to connect with local or specialty suppliers; or a consumer looking for goods and services in your area MarketMaker is a must-have resource.
Ag Decision Maker
An agricultural economics and business website. Find information files, decision tools, voiced medias on farm enterprise budgets, market outlooks, profitability, etc.
Value Added Agriculture
Contact ISU Extension’s Value Added Ag program for information on business planning, as well as contact information for assistance in marketing, feasibility studies, or business planning. Their specialists offer technical assistance as well as trainings such as MarketReady, a training for local food producers who currently sell their products direct to consumers and are looking to scale up to wholesale marketing.
Useful Contacts
Craig Chase – Business, Finance and Management
Craig has over 20 years of experience helping farmers with their business plans. “I always focus on helping others make better decisions. It is not the decision that is made that is important to me. It is whether the decision that was made was an informed decision.”
Joseph M. Hannan – Season Extension, Fruit and Vegetable Production
Joseph is an Iowa State University Extension and Outreach field specialist in horticulture. He supports the Local Foods Industry by working with commercial fruit and vegetable growers to expand and improve their operations. His primary focus is on high tunnel production but he is also the editor and author for the IowaProduce monthly newsletter. 515.993.4281.
Ajay Nair – Cover Crops, Irrigation Systems, Fruit and Vegetable Production
Ajay is an Extension Vegetable Specialist and a Professor in the Department of Horticulture. Check out his blog: http://iowavegetables.blogspot.com/ This blog provides updates on various aspects of vegetable production in Iowa and is intended to serve as a platform for communication between researchers, students, growers, extension staff, and folks interested in vegetable production. 515.294.7080.
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