How much should you charge your neighbor if you’re going to do vertical tillage for him because he doesn’t own a vertical-tillage tool? Or on the flip side, is the amount you’re paying someone to chisel-plow fields that need it because you no longer own a chisel plow a fair rate?

Every other year, Michael Langemeier heads up a survey through Purdue University’s Center for Commercial Agriculture to see what people are either charging or paying for various farm tasks done on a custom basis. He relies on Purdue Extension educators to help distribute surveys, and then he compiles the data. Farmers, landowners, farm custom operators and professional farm managers within the state were invited to participate. Ninety-seven people provided responses that were included.

Unless otherwise stated, rates reported include payments made for fuel, operator labor and machinery ownership costs. For each operation, the average of responses received was reported, Langemeier notes. Custom rates for some operations vary widely from one part of the state to another.

For operations with 30 or more responses, Langemeier determined a range based on going one standard deviation above and below the average rate. So, the highest and lowest rates reported were not included.  Typically, about two-thirds of the responses would fall within the range.

For example, for vertical tillage, the average reported custom charge for one pass was $13.84 per acre. In this case, the range for a vertical tillage pass was $10.29 to $17.41 per acre.

Langemeier cautions that these rates should only be used as guidelines. More operations will be highlighted in future articles. Check out the chart below. To see the full report for all operations, complete with all qualifying comments, visit 2021 Indiana Farm Custom Rates.