The Nebraska Crop Production Budgets have been revised and updated for 2019 with 78 budgets covering 15 crops. Also included is information on crop budgeting procedures, machinery operation and ownership costs, material and service prices, and a crop budget cost summary.

The largest increase in input costs from the 2018 to the 2019 budgets was for nitrogen fertilizer, with a price increase of about 20%. Phosphorus fertilizer increased about 11%. These prices were obtained in October 2018. Fuel costs were adjusted higher with land costs adjusted slightly lower, based on the Nebraska Farm Real Estate Report.

The budgets reflect production costs comparable to average costs per unit for the top one-third of producers with the lowest costs per unit. Actual farm financial data from Nebraska Farm Business, Inc. and data from other states was used to determine the costs. In addition to estimating a total cost of production per acre and per bushel, including opportunity cost for land use, each budget shows the cash costs of production. The budgets do not estimate returns.

Crop production budgets are grouped by crop and provided in two formats: PDF and an editable Excel spreadsheet that allows producers to customize the budgets to reflect their operation.

By comparing costs for each individual item in the budgets to their costs, producers can identify items and areas that may need attention to increase their crop production efficiency. For example, soybean producers with higher machinery, fertilizer and labor costs were in the highest one-third in cost per unit of production. However, soybean yields were almost the same for the high one-third producers versus producers with the lowest one-third of production costs.

It’s important to note that the crop budgets include cost estimates based on assumptions. The prepared budgets are available as a guide and should be examined carefully prior to being used for decision making by individual producers.

The 2019 crop budgets were developed and edited by Robert Klein, extension western Nebraska crops specialist, and Glennis McClure, UNL agricultural economics extension educator – farm and ranch management analyst, with assistance from Roger Wilson, retired extension farm management/enterprise budget analyst.

Contributing to the budgets in their specialty areas were: Jessica Groskopf, Jim Jansen, and Robert Tigner, agricultural economics extension educators; Loren Giesler, Tamra Jackson-Ziems, and Stephen Wegulo, extension plant pathologists; Paul Jasa, extension engineer; and Chris Proctor, extension weed management educator.

For more information on the UNL 2019 Crop Budgets, contact:

• Robert Klein, extension western Nebraska crops specialist, at (308) 696-6705 or rklein1@unl.edu
• Glennis McClure, agricultural economics extension educator, (402) 472-0661 or gmcclure3@unl.edu