Performing Department
Agricultural Economics
Non Technical Summary
This project aims to improve the knowledge, long-term profitability, and risk management decisions of U.S. farmers and ranchers through the use and development of the National Farm Financial Benchmarking Database (National Database). The project will be conducted through the collaborative efforts of three farm business management associations in three states (the South Dakota Center for Farm/Ranch Management at the Mitchell Technical Institute [SDCFRM], the North Dakota Farm Business Management [NDFBM] Education Program, and Nebraska Farm Business, Inc. [NFBI]), and two land-grant universities (Ohio State University [OSU] and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln [UNL]).Our project will address both FBMB Program Objectives to 1) "maintain and expand" the national database and 2) "expand collaborative farm management educational programs and association partnerships that will contribute data" to the national database. We will also help to address all five FBMB Measures identified in the funding announcement. While our organizations already support over 1,730 producer farm financial analyses and contribute to the national database, we are committed to increasing the number of participants (particularly beginning and small- and medium-sized farms), increasing the quality of financial records, and creating a comprehensive annual report to be used in the national database. Our project will also support research to improve knowledge of the role of information avoidance in financial risk management decision-making. Research outcomes will be used to identify information-framing strategies that may appeal to individuals with limited knowledge of financial standing and farm profitability management effectiveness.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
We will improve the National Database, small- and medium-sized farm profitability and competitiveness, and producers' decision-making skills by achieving the following program goals:Improve the quality, quantity, and diversity of data in the National Database through enhanced producer association partnerships in four states.Use resulting project data to link farm financial indicators to other farm decision-making tools to improve the probability of farm success and survival, particularly for small- and medium-sized and beginning farms.We will accomplish the goals by achieving the following objectives:Expand the already established National Database to support improved farm management for producers.Expand collaborative partnerships with producer associations to improve producers' farm management knowledge and skills and increase data sharing for the National Database.Increase data gathering aimed at beginning and small- and medium-sized farms.Increase the profitability and competitiveness of beginning and small- and medium-sized farms and ranches through access to quality, uniform farm business management benchmarking data.Enhance producers' financial knowledge to improve their ability to survive through periods of high uncertainty, volatility, and financial stress.
Project Methods
Each partner will createannual reports tohelp producers and the agricultural professionals working with them benchmark their farms and take their farm management skills to a higher level. These reports will include a sentific interpretation of data, comparisons among different groups, splits among the diverse geographical regions within the state,benchmarks for program participants, commodity groups, lenders, universities, government agencies, and others. To improve the experience of producers, the association will utilize FINPACK and RankEm comparison software to create individualized benchmarking reports to show how participants compare to their peers and will compile results in the annual report.