Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/23

Outputs
Target Audience:The primary goal of this project is to provide a national farm financial benchmarking database that will allow any farmer in the nation to compare their financial performance with a selected peer group of like farms. Therefore, the target audience of this project is all farmers in the U.S. The more direct audience is that group of farmers who are participants in farm business management education programs and who contribute to the National Farm Financial Management and Benchmarking Database. All farms across the country have access to the FINBIN website, the portal into the national database to generate benchmark reports. They can also use the "Compare Your Farm" feature to enter their financial data and generate peer group benchmarks. A third audience is agricultural lenders, educators, and other agricultural professionals and policymakers who can access FINBIN to generate reports to benchmark their clients, generate educational material, and monitor the performance of the ag economy. Finally, the fourth audience is agricultural researchers who can use FINBIN reports to support research in various facets of farm financial management. A more focused effort on research has taken place over recent years with the addition of Dr. Joleen Hadrich as a University of Minnesota faculty member. Dr. Hadrich has completed research on the attributes of top farmers, resilient dairy operations, and the impact of the Market Facilitation Program (MFP) government program. Her current research projects include the economics of cover crop production and organic production. She also has graduate students researching the attributes of successful beginning farmers and feed cost economics on dairy operations. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Consistently, CFFM provides extensive training and resources to partner programs and groups that submit data to the National Farm Business Management Benchmarking Database. This training program helps ensure the database contains accurate information and conforms to a standard of consistency and integrity. Both virtual and in-person training sessions were regularly conducted during the time period of this project. Virtual training sessions have proved to be invaluable as they allow a greater number of program educators to participate in a convenient and cost-effective manner. All virtual training webinars are recorded and made easily available for educators to reference or view at a later point in time. In the spring, CFFM hosted a recorded webinar dedicated to training newer educators and educators from emerging programs on the use of our RankEm software. Educators from several partner programs were in attendance at this webinar. The RankEm software program is used by participating programs for auditing and aggregating individual farm data before the data is sent to the CFFM team for review prior to submission to FINBIN. This software also enables program leaders to generate informational reports that are often used in their respective annual summary data reports and presentations. Lastly, RankEm provides benchmark reports for individual producers which allow them to compare their farm financial and enterprise performance to their peers. This provides a powerful means for SWOT analysis by producers. In August, CFFM annually hosts an in-person FINPACK training session specifically geared for educational and benchmarking users. Educators from Delaware, Kansas, Minnesota, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Carolina, and South Dakota attended this year's multi-day session. Throughout the program effort, CFFM staff has traveled as requested to provide training for farm management programs. During this project time period, training has been provided to educators and consultants in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. These sessions are often for newer instructors but also provide necessary updates, resources, and education to all program team members. In November, CFFM hosts the annual Benchmark Project Leaders Meeting which brings together all of the partner programs in person to discuss the successes and challenges they've experienced, how CFFM can best support their educational efforts, and to provide any updates on changes to the FINPACK software or the analysis procedures. This meeting enables the projects to connect with and learn from each other. Each December, CFFM hosts its annual webinar training series covering several topics to aid participating educators in their annual analysis work with producers. These topics will include completing whole-farm and crop/livestock enterprise analysis, completing market channel analysis, analyzing fields using cover crop practices, tips for resolving analysis errors and data discrepancies, and important updates for the upcoming analysis season. The webinars are provided live via Zoom and educators can access the recordings after the fact to reference while completing a farm analysis with a producer. Recently hired educators and those still gaining foundational experience, as well as those from emerging and new benchmarking programs, are the target audience of this webinar series. Beyond delivering training sessions, CFFM provides an array of resources for its educational program partners. A Google Site is maintained by CFFM containing resources including the annually updated Closeout Manual (serves as a guide for the standard analysis procedure and for handling unique, uncommon, or currently relevant situations) and the recordings of all the virtual training webinars conducted. Resources contributed by farm management programs are also housed on this site, providing a repository of resources for all collaborators. The FINPACK Knowledge Base is another CFFM website providing resources for educational users of the FINPACK software with a series of whitepapers and analysis completion resources. These include FINPACK analysis input forms, whitepapers explaining how to correct analysis discrepancies, and other beneficial tips and resources to aid in the use of FINPACK. CFFM also maintains a full suite of online training videos for FINPACK where users can watch numerous, short videos explaining very specific components of data entry or output interpretation for FINPACK analysis tools. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Information from the National Farm Business Management Benchmarking Database is primarily disseminated through public access to the FINBIN website. Anyone can search or query the FINBIN database for summary or benchmark level information on an array of financial metrics. These queries can be filtered by geography, farm sizes (using ranges of gross revenue, net farm income, or total enterprise size for example), farm type, and many other whole farm attributes. For crop or livestock enterprise data queries, filters are available for enterprise size and specific production practices. CFFM, as well as the partner programs, produce annual reports intended to disseminate benchmarking information to producers and other stakeholders. Each May, CFFM produces the Annual Report on Minnesota Farm Finances where information from Minnesota farms in FINBIN for the most recent analysis year is summarized and highlighted. CFFM also assists the Southwest Minnesota Farm Business Management Association, a partner educational program, with the development of its annual report. Both of these reports underwent significant improvements this past year to incorporate more modern data visualization and communication principles to better communicate insights from the data. CFFM staff also provided several presentations utilizing data from FINBIN. During this project, presentations included the Preconference Seminar and a breakout session at the American Bankers Association Agricultural Bankers Conference; several presentations as part of the National Farmers Organization (NFO)'s AgProfit Strategies Seminars in several states including New York, Kansas, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania; the Indiana Bankers Annual Conference; the Michigan Association of CPA's Agribusiness Conference; the Farm Future's Ag Finance Boot Camp; and the National Association of Credit Management's National Agricultural Credit Conference. CFFM staff regularly receives requests from national journalists to provide insights based on trends identified in reports generated through the National Database, including Farm Futures, Public Radio, Farm and Ranch Guide, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Successful Farming, Farm Progress, AgFax, Ag Week, Farm Journal's MILK Business, The Land, The Farmer, Corn and Soybean Digest, Progressive Dairy, and Wells Fargo's Food for Thought newsletter. FINBIN data is cited in educational resources published by farmdoc Daily, Choices Magazine, Farm Foundation Issue Reports, and Farm Table. Collaborative efforts have also been ongoing with Farmer Mac and the Minneapolis Federal Reserve regarding the state of agriculture in the U.S. and the Ninth Federal Reserve District. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Over the course of this project, the Center for Farm Financial Management (CFFM) continued to work closely with farm business management education programs and their respective educators/analysts to support their educational efforts and to ensure the National Farm Business Management Benchmarking Database (FINBIN) is as accessible as possible to producers, educators, and other stakeholders across the country. The integrity, accuracy, and trustworthiness of the FINBIN database are crucial for it to act as a valuable benchmarking resource for producers. CFFM provides continual training and resources to help ensure analysis methods are consistent across all programs in all states. All of the data submitted to FINBIN is thoroughly reviewed and vetted at several stages to eliminate erroneous outliers and to maintain the reporting integrity of the database. CFFM continued to grow the FINBIN dataset. So far, for the 2022 analysis year, complete financial information from 3,097 farms from partner farm business management education programs have been submitted to and included in FINBIN. These were compiled from programs in Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Michigan, Utah, and Wisconsin. Additional data is in the process of being aggregated and reviewed from programs in Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina, Vermont, and Ohio. The database is hosted by the University of Minnesota and all the data for the 2022 analysis year, and for each year going back over two decades, is publicly available on the FINBIN website. On this website, any user can generate whole-farm and enterprise summary reports. Additionally, benchmark reports showing both whole farm and enterprise-level information across deciles are available. Producers can also generate a report comparing their financial ratios versus those in the FINBIN database. All of the reports in FINBIN can be filtered into various groupings using markers such as year(s), farm types, operator age, state, total crop acres, farming practices, and more. For all of the reports, a minimum number of observations are required to ensure the anonymization of producers whose data is contributed to FINBIN. During the most recent 12-month CFFM internal reporting period, over 8,200 unique website users visited the FINBIN database site. Those 8,200 unique users had 17,000 user sessions indicating that each unique user averaged just over 2 user sessions during those twelve months. In these same 12 months, users generated 35,878 reports, translating to approximately 4 reports per user. Since the inception of the FINBIN database more than two and a half decades ago, over 632,000 reports have been generated. CFFM continually works to expand the size and scope of the FINBIN national database. The goal is to have FINBIN be as representative and as strong of a benchmarking tool as possible for all farm operations. Currently, CFFM is working closely with several new groups across the country to broaden the data available in the national farm financial benchmarking database. These groups include an Aquaculture project in Maine and Maryland, the Iowa Farm Business Management Association, a beef project in Kansas, a dairy heifer project in Pennsylvania, and a pilot project with Oklahoma State University. Work continues with the Farmer Veteran Coalition and The Good Acre groups to recruit underrepresented farmers who could benefit from working with farm business management educators and consultants to analyze the finances of their farm operations. CFFM also continues working with these groups and others to recruit specialty crop fruit and vegetable farmers who could benefit from the recently added market channel analysis capabilities in FINPACK. This analysis enables a producer to analyze the profitability of the various market channels they participate in and sell to rather than analyzing the individual crops produced in their operation. CFFM continued to develop and deploy software improvements in FINPACK to further enhance the educational value to educators and their producers. CFFM continually aims to improve the software and increase the efficiency of participating farm management benchmarking programs. Improvements made during this time frame include the incorporation of recently updated recommended financial ratios from the Farm Financial Standards Council (FFSC)'s Financial Guidelines for Agriculture; changes to allow users to better analyze oyster and seaweed aquaculture enterprises; a redesign of the value-added enterprise analysis; analysis methodology for evaluating the impact of cover crops on cropland; and additional development of the market channel analysis in the software. Additional analysis efficiencies have been added to FINPACK with the latest release of the software. These enhancements allow data to flow through the program more seamlessly, saving users from entering the same data in multiple places. Enhancements continue to other CFFM software programs that support benchmarking efforts as well. During this grant period the "Plan on a Page" report was developed in myFINBIN for farm management consultants. This report provides up to three years of trend data for key financial measures for the farm, along with a column for the coming year's projected plan, and a column for peer benchmarking comparison. This simple report provides trends, projections, and benchmarks on a single page, assisting users in communicating and teaching farmers about financial management and benchmarking. The interface capability between the FINPACK analysis software and the widely used PC Mars farm accounting software has been further refined to increase the efficiency of completing analysis within FINPACK. Users can now import everything from cash transactions and balance sheet information to inventory items from PC Mars. This eases the process of completing a detailed enterprise analysis in FINPACK. CFFM has also worked extensively on the development of an interview balance sheet tool that can create a FINPACK balance sheet by guiding users through a series of questions, intended to aid underserved producers and producers who may not have the necessary knowledge to complete a balance sheet on their own. Balance sheets developed with this tool will be brought into the traditional version of FINPACK, enabling farm business management educators to more efficiently work with producers who may have less financial knowledge and experience. In addition, CFFM has begun the development of extending the FINPACK+ cloud-based software version for producers and educators. Having cloud-based software will empower greater efficiencies for farm business management education programs, provide a secure backup means for data, and will aid in the data review and compilation process for the FINBIN database. Infrastructure development is in process to accommodate the use of FINPACK+ with these types of users. CFFM is pilot testing FINPACK+ with the Southwest Minnesota Farm Business Management Association (SWMFBMA). SWMFBMA is currently testing this software option and will be discussing it with its Board of Directors later this fall. Lastly, CFFM is continuing to enhance the data visualization of FINBIN. CFFM is working to make the information gleaned from the national database more accessible and easier to understand for all audiences. To start, the graphs used by CFFM, and other benchmarking partners have been updated to better conform to data visualization standards of today. In addition, integrating Tableau into FINBIN is being analyzed to provide a dashboard view of the database. This dashboard will increase interactivity and enable the user to explore the data that is most relevant to their interests.

Publications

• Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: FINBIN, Center for Farm Financial Management, University of Minnesota, http://www.finbin.umn.edu
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Brand, D.L., Van Nurden, P.A., Paulson, G.J., Knorr, T.L., Sandager, N., Nordquist, D.W. (2023, April). Southwest Minnesota Farm Business Management Association 2022 Annual Report. Retrievable at https://www.cffm.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/2022_SWAnnualReport_WebVersion.pdf.
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Van Nurden, P.A., Brand, D.L., Wilts Johnson, K.A., Nordquist, D.A. (2023, May). Annual Report on Minnesota Farm Finances. Retrievable at https://www.cffm.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/2022-FINBIN-Report-on-Minnesota-Farm-Finances_Final.pdf.
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Van Nurden, P.A., Wilts Johnson, K.A., Brand, D.L., Gauthier, V. (2023, August). The Economics of Cover Crops on Minnesota Farms. Retrievable at https://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/2023-07/Economics%20of%20Cover%20Crops%20on%20MN%20Farms%20Report%202022.pdf.
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Hadrich, J., Van Nurden, P.A., DiGiacomo, G., Weir, R. (2023, October). 2020-2022 Organic Farm Performance in the Upper Midwest. Retrievable at https://www.cffm.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2020-2022-Upper-Midwest-Organic-Report-Final.pdf.

Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22

Outputs
Target Audience:The primary goal of this project is to provide a national farm financial benchmarking database that will allow any farmer in the nation to compare their financial performance with a selected peer group of like farms. Therefore, the target audience of this project is all farmers in the U.S. The more direct audience is that group of farmers who are participants in farm business management education programs and who contribute to the National Farm Financial Management and Benchmarking Database. To date, complete financials for 3,349 participating farms from ten partner farm management education programs are currently included in the National Farm Management and Benchmarking Database at http://www.finbin.umn.edu for the 2020 business year. Farms have been compiled and included in the database from 10 states (MI, MN, MO, NE, ND, PA, SC, SD, WI, and New England), with additional data still to be compiled from ID, IL, NC, OH, and TX. Participating farms are provided tools and access to make it possible to directly compare their farms with benchmark peer groups to highlight financial strengths and weaknesses. In 2021, 68% of contributing farms were small or mid-sized farms, the group that was most challenged by the most recent downturn in the agricultural economy. Twenty-six percent (26%) were beginning farmers and 34% were young farmers. Forty-four (44) participating producers identified themselves as veterans. Ninety-four (94) identified themselves as using environmental type practices. Lastly, there is an increased effort to reach minority producers. Program participants do not identify their ethnicity, but efforts have been underway with programs like The Good Acre in Minnesota. This organization works with immigrant and minority producers in their farm production. All farms across the country have access to the FINBIN website, the portal into the national database to generate benchmark reports. They can also use the "Compare Your Farm" feature to enter their financial data and generate peer group benchmarks. A third audience is agricultural lenders, educators, and other agricultural professionals who can access FINBIN to generate reports to benchmark their clients, generate educational material and monitor the performance of the ag economy. Finally, the fourth audience is agricultural researchers who can use FINBIN reports to support research in various facets of farm financial management. A more focused effort on research has taken place over recent years with the addition of Dr. Joleen Hadrich as a University of Minnesota faculty member. Dr. Hadrich has completed research on the attributes of top farmers, resilient dairy operations, and the impact of the Market Facilitation Program (MFP) government program. Her current research projects include the economics of cover crop production and organic production. She also has graduate students researching the attributes of successful beginning farmers and feed cost economics on dairy operations. Changes/Problems:The COVID-19 pandemic led to challenges for all, benchmarking efforts were impacted as well. Meeting with producers, compiling the financial data, and presenting the results have all been impacted by the pandemic. Many efforts moved to a virtual format. Virtual settings are certainly viable for this type of work but pivoting quickly was a challenge. Additionally, many programs struggled to grow the number of producers they work with and new programs struggled to get established given the challenges. Hopefully, as the world emerges from the pandemic, project efforts like these can again gain their stride and continue to move forward. Additionally, one of the CFFM economists left her position. This individual was leading the data visualization enhancement project in the national FINBIN database. In recent months, a replacement has been hired and onboarded in CFFM. The data visualization efforts are again being explored and plans are underway for future use in benchmarking projects. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?CFFM provides extensive, ongoing training and training resources to partner groups who contribute to the National Farm Business Management Benchmarking Database. This training contributes to the goal of assuring the National Database is accurate and conforms to uniform standards of consistency and data integrity. Trainings have been held both in-person and virtual. Virtual training opportunities allow educators from distant programs to more easily and economically participate. Sessions have been offered for new benchmarking collaborators and benchmarking programs interested in refresher type trainings. Another training related to specifically to crop and livestock enterprise analysis is planned for December 2022. Additional training has been provided to instructors in Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Colorado, Idaho, Pennsylvania and North Dakota since the beginning of this grant project. These are in addition to our annual, multi-day training for educational users in August and other requested training sessions received each year from programs. Training for other collaborating partners is offered on an as requested basis. Finally, CFFM also maintains a full suite of online training resources for FINPACK users. Recently the online training modules were enhanced to include detailed videos on completing and interpreting the crop and livestock enterprise analysis. White papers providing tips and resources for all FINPACK users are found in the FINPACK Knowledge Base at https://www.cffm.umn.edu/FINPACKkb. Specific tools and resources related to benchmarking are provided to educators across the nation at https://sites.google.com/a/umn. edu/finpackbenchmarking. Encompassed on this website are resources such as training videos on the benchmarking process (including segments on advanced balance sheet analysis, advanced whole-farm analysis, crop enterprise analysis, livestock enterprise analysis, and advance enterprise analysis) and the use of the RankEm software in compiling and reviewing benchmark data for consistency and integrity. Educational programs across the country have also provided analysis efficiency-related resources to assist other users with initiating the benchmarking process with the farmers and ranchers in their area. CFFM hosts an annual National Benchmarking Project Leaders meeting in November or December to prepare for activities in the next year and to consult on strategic plans for the future. This year's meeting is currently being planned for early December 2022. FINPACK software updates are also distributed to users each November. This year's release includes Farm Financial Standards Council ratio updates, additional livestock enterprise analysis efficiencies, the addition of market channel analysis, the addition of aquaculture analysis, and other data entry efficiency enhancements. These enhancements are aimed at bringing efficiency, accuracy, and new analysis types to the financial analysis process. The RankEm software updates are released in December. With the most recent update, the error check report will be broadened to further help with data integrity and error checking prior to submission for the National Database. Lastly, the technical data dictionary is now compiled for the balance sheet; whole-farm variables and calculations used in the whole farm area of the FINAN financial analysis; and the variables and calculations utilized in the crop and enterprise analysis areas of FINAN. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The primary method used to disseminate farm financial benchmark results is through public access to FINBIN. FINBIN is open to anyone to query for summary financial information or benchmarks on financial metrics. Data queries can filter by farm sizes, type, and several other whole-farm attributes. Enterprise-level queries can filter by specific production practices for crop and livestock enterprises. CFFM staff and others make several national presentations each year using data from the National Database to publicize the results. During this period, presentations included American Bankers Association's Annual Convention where Dale Nordquist and Pauline Van Nurden provided a Pre-Conference training session. Additionally, Bob Craven and Pauline Van Nurden offered a breakout session at the conference. Upcoming presentations scheduled include Indiana Bankers Annual Conference, FINPACK Lender's Conference, NFO AgProfit Strategies workshops, and the MOSES (Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service) Organic Conference. Other presentations are scheduled on an as requested basis. The Farm Financial Standards Council has incorporated benchmark reports from the National Database into its Financial Guidelines for Agricultural Producers. CFFM staff regularly receives requests from national journalists to provide insights based on trends identified in reports generated through the National Database, including Farm Futures, Public Radio, Farm and Ranch Guide, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Successful Farming, Farm Progress, AgFax, Ag Week, Farm Journal's MILK Business, The Land, The Farmer, Corn and Soybean Digest, Progressive Dairy, and Wells Fargo's Food for Thought newsletter. FINBIN data is cited in educational resources published by farmdoc Daily, Choices Magazine, Farm Foundation Issue Reports, and Farm Table. Collaborative efforts have also been ongoing with the Minneapolis Federal Reserve regarding the state of agriculture in the Ninth Federal Reserve District. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?CFFM will support partner groups as they complete financial analysis of the 2022 farm business year with their participants and finish compiling the 2022 data into the national database. CFFM will provide training for all participants who request it and will continue to provide webinars and online training resources to support new and existing users. CFFM will host the National Benchmark Leaders meeting in the next month and will work on requests and feedback received from this meeting. Special efforts will be aimed at working with the programs in New Jersey, Kansas, South Carolina, Iowa, Illinois, Texas, and Oklahoma to help them in their efforts to initiate and expand benchmark program efforts. These efforts also include fostering a virtual farm management trial with the Farmer Veterans Coalition in an effort to continue the expansion of the National Farm Financial database. The hope is to expand the diversity of farms provided in FINBIN. Additionally, our team is planning to continue FINPACK and FINBIN developments. First is to enhance FINBIN with greater data visualization capabilities in the coming year. Research has begun on the options and how this might be accomplished. Additionally, work continues on how an online version of FINPACK might work for educators. Additionally, CFFM will continue to assist educators with implementing market channel analysis. To this end, we will assist in promoting immigrant and migrant producers to farm management programs by collaborating with programs like The Good Acre and Farmer Veteran Coalition. Lastly, CFFM will work to improve the financial analysis software to more thoroughly analyze value-added operations and bring this information to the FINBIN database.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The Center for Farm Financial Management (CFFM) worked closely with farm business management educators in partner states to support their educational efforts and to make the National Farm Business Management Benchmarking Database accessible to producers and to educators across the nation. To date, complete financials for 3,349 participating farms from partner farm management education programs are currently included in the National Farm Management and Benchmarking Database for 2021 at http://www.finbin.umn.edu for the 2021 business year. Farms have been compiled and included in the database from 10 states/cooperating programs (MI, MN, MO, NE, ND, PA, SC, SD, WI, and New England), with additional data still to be compiled from ID, IL, NC, OH, and TX. In addition, staff from 17 states received training in 2021-22. In December, CFFM will host a training series on completing enterprise analysis in FINPACK for the enterprise reports in FINBIN and training series on benchmarking topics of interest, like market channel analysis, cover crop analysis, and 2022 analysis updates. These participants are new instructors or are members of new and emerging programs we have begun collaborating with. These new and emerging programs are in various stages of the process to recruit farms, complete analyses, and provide enough quality data to be included in the database. Programs include the New England project; Aquaculture project with Maine; IA (with Iowa Farm Business Association); NC (with North Carolina A & T); SC (with Clemson); ID (with University of Idaho Extension); PA (with Penn State Extension); a pilot project with Oklahoma State University; a renewed effort with Illinois FBFM; and a pilot project with Texas A&M University. Data has also been included from a private farm management consultant as part of CFFM's effort to expand the size and scope of the database. FINPACK is the software tool being used to create financial statements for these operations. All data is carefully vetted at several levels to eliminate outliers and assure reporting integrity. The National Database is maintained at the University of Minnesota and is open to any producer or public user to generate benchmarking reports on farm financial statements, Farm Financial Standards Council ratios, other whole entity reports, crop enterprise analysis reports, and livestock enterprise analysis reports. During the most recent twelve-month reporting year, FINBIN was used by 10,692 unique users, with 17,937 user sessions. There were 38,192 reports run by users the last year. The 2021 database, compiled during 2022, includes 130 organic farms and 38 specialty crop farms. And, forty-four (44) producers identified themselves as veterans. CFFM provides ongoing training,education, and software support to partner farm business management programs. Findings from the Analysis Process Efficiency Survey have been used to drive training efforts and analysis support material creation for instructors across the programs involved in benchmarking. This survey was completed recently as a means to help programs gain efficiencies and learn the training needs of instructors and consultants. CFFM also continued to make software improvements to improve the educational value and to provide efficiencies to participating farm management programs. During this period, CFFM has continued the process of updating FINPACK's financial analysis software to include a market channel analysis component. CFFM continues to work with The Good Acre and Farmer Veteran Coalition to recruite immigrant and minority producers that may benefit from this type of analysis. Additionally, this will be used by several programs to meet the unique needs of analyzing specialty crop and direct marketing farm businesses. Additional analysis efficiencies have been added to FINPACK with the most recent software release. These enhancements allow data to more seamlessly and efficiently throughout the program. CFFM has also been working with the Iowa Farm Business Association to build a tighter interface between the PCMars Farm Accounting Software and FINPACK. This effort will expand the capabilities of the current interface beyond the ability to transfer cash transactions from the accounting software to FINPACK. The expansion will include the transfer of balance sheet loan and inventory items and also more synergies in completing the crop and livestock enterprise analysis. The FINPACK Vault continues to be used by more and more of the collaborating benchmark programs. The Vault is a secure repository site for FINPACK data, providing a web-based redundant backup of farm data and seamless extraction for compiling individual farm data into databases. The use of this technology will improve efficiency in data transfer and will also be more secure than current methods of data transfer. In addition, some recent FINPACK training sessions have been offered virtually utilizing our new FINPACK+ SaaS (software as a service) platform. This new platform provides on online version of FINPACK for users. The use of this platform is being tested for use with educators during these training sessions. The opportunity for FINPACK+ to be used by all educational collaborators will be available in the near future. CFFM staff publicizes the National Database and the insights that can be gained from the data in various national venues and media outlets. Efforts continue to use the national database to support research programs. One such effort has been finalized recently, with additional research opportunities pending with this data. The initial project was research combining dairy production and financial data of MN producers to determine the characteristics of resilient dairy farms. The results of this research have been analyzed and several presentations and publications have included the results. Additional research projects are underway including evaluating the economics of cover crops and organic production. CFFM continues to foster virtual farm management initiatives. Assistance has been provided to Minnesota Farm Business Management instructors in their work with educators in the New England states. Additional efforts are in the works related to virtual farm management, including an effort with Farmer Veteran Coalition and another effort to work with specialty crop farms in Colorado on market channel analysis. These efforts are beginning, with the goal of having analysis results in the future. CFFM continues to teach the financial management component of NFO Beginning Farmers projects. The "AgProfit Strategies" project focuses on conventional grain, beef, and dairy producers in 15 states across the Midwest. CFFM staff made 7 presentation for this project in 2022. A recorded version has been shared with NFO for their virtual presentations as well. Data from the National Farm Business Management Benchmarking Database is used to provide financial insight to conventional and organic producers. Additionally, the "Plan on a Page" report has been added to myFINBIN and is being utilized by benchmarking programs. This effort will provide a snapshot of financial information and trends for producers participating in farm management programs. Additional enhancements are being researched for inclusion in FINBIN. One such enhancement is the inclusion of data visualization for the national database. Additionally, value-added enterprise analysis is currently being researched for the analysis and national database. Lastly, an updated benchmarking survey was completed of benchmarking program participants and their field staff. This survey gathered data on the value of benchmarking for farm and ranch operations.

Publications

• Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: FINBIN, Center for Farm Financial Management, University of Minnesota, http://www.finbin.umn.edu