Farm Progress

Livestock budget offers expense, profit projectionsExcel spreadsheet easy to adapt for specific operation

May 23, 2016

2 Min Read
<p>A series of spreadsheets is now available to help producers develop planning budgets for the current year.</p>

Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service economists have updated crop and livestock budgets for 2016 to help farmers and ranchers plan and calculate expense and profit estimates for the current year.

The budgets are available in spreadsheet format at http://bit.ly/1TZd7wA.

“The spreadsheets give producers the ability to produce individualized budgets for their operations,” said Jerry Cornforth, AgriLife Extension economist, College Station. “Producers enter information and the spreadsheet formulas calculate profit or loss from the data entered.”

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On the website, producers can select the appropriate region of the state, then select 2016.

The 2016 page will have a list of budgets for the various crops in the region, Cornforth said. Select the “Build Your Own Budget” link at the bottom of the page to download the spreadsheet budgets.

The crop and livestock budgets vary across the state by AgriLife Extension district, Cornforth said.

Crop budgets include canola, corn, cotton, grapefruit, hay, including alfalfa, coastal, sorghum, grazing (coastal, small grain, sudangrass), malting barley, oats, melons, oranges, peaches, peanuts, pecans, rice, sesame, and silage, including corn, sorghum, triticale, sorghum, soybeans, sugarcane, sunflowers, vegetables, and wheat.

Livestock spreadsheets are available for cow-calf, sheep and goat, and summer or winter stocker calf operations.

EASY DOWNLOAD

“We make these spreadsheets available in Excel format, so any producer can download them,” Cornforth said. “One of the advantages of these spreadsheets is that a producer can make changes to revenue or cost estimates and quickly see the profit/loss impact. It gives them the ability to evaluate a number of ‘what if’ questions in a short time.

“With spring planted crops already in the ground, some producers may have completed their farm planning for this year. However, these spreadsheets are valuable not only for pre-season planning, but also for keeping tabs on production costs and profit/loss estimates throughout the growing season,” he said. “These budgets are generally modeled for commodities and production practices specific to certain regions of Texas, but they can be modified to fit any producer’s operation. If an enterprise budget is not available for a producer’s area, one from another area can serve just a well as a template for information. We think these will be a big help in budgeting expenses and farm planning, hopefully leading to better returns and reduced risk.”

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