Progress 07/01/08 to 09/30/09
Outputs
OUTPUTS: The goals of this project were: 1. To gather data and conduct research on cost of production, farm profitability factors, and farm policy; 2. To improve the profitability and competitiveness of small, medium-sized, and larger farms and ranches by providing access to high quality, uniform farm management benchmarking information; 3. To build a national comprehensive internet-based farm financial and production management database from actual farm data that can be used for farm financial research, and to make a version available that producers can query; 4. To develop cooperation and data sharing among existing farm management associations and farm business management education programs throughout the country; and 5. To develop one of the country's foremost data sources for researching farm profitability and competitiveness. Extension farm management associations and technical college farm business management education programs in twelve states cooperated to expand farm management assistance provided producers. These educators have access to the FINPACK financial analysis and planning software and received extensive training to strengthen their knowledge of individual farm finance. Over fifty training sessions were conducted involving educators and analysts from thirteen states. Training goals were to develop local educators knowledge of financial analysis, to develop in-depth knowledge of the financial analysis software, to assure the use of uniform financial analysis procedures, and to develop instructor knowledge of financial benchmarking. An advisory group of leaders from participating states met annually for the past three years to review the project, share educational approaches and to suggest cooperative activities. As part of individualized instruction, participating farmers and ranchers completed annual financial whole entity and enterprise level analysis. Individual farm data was collected and made available in summary form when combined with other farms through the FINBIN database for benchmarking against dynamically select peer groups. Participating educators and producers provided feedback to the developers to suggest software changes to improve reporting, increase accuracy, and provide more useful peer-group benchmark reports. The online FINBIN database at http://www.finbin.umn.edu includes data from eight states and over 3,400 farms annually. Producers and agricultural professionals can search and query actual farm data for whole entity and enterprise benchmarks. States included were Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah, and Wisconsin. A companion tool, myFINBIN, was developed with an alternative funding to provide more individualized benchmark reports for project participants. Another companion project provided support for organic producers to participate in these educational programs, resulting in the ability to generate benchmark reports for 78 organic farms. PARTICIPANTS: The following individuals from the Center for Farm Financial Management staff participated in this project: Robert Craven is project leader, participated in software development, training and dissemination of results; Dale Nordquist participated in software development, led training and coordination activities with participating groups; Wynn Richardson leads the software development team; Rann Loppnow was the lead programmer on software developments; Dave Nordquist leads day to day software support activities, and Eliza Herman provided training and coordination support. Partner organizations: Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, North Dakota Farm and Ranch Business Management Education Program, Missouri Farm Business Analysis, Nebraska Farm Business, Inc, Nebraskaland Farm and Ranch Management Education Program, Utah Technology Colleges, Wisconsin Technical Colleges, Ohio State University Extension Service, Penn State Cooperative Extension and Outreach, Dawson Community College, Glendive, Montana. TARGET AUDIENCES: Primary target is farmers and ranchers who participate in farm business management education programs provided by partner organizations. These producers use the whole entity and enterprise performance reports to provide feedback to management concerning strengths and weaknesses and changes needed to remain competitive. By directly benchmarking their production and financial performance against true peer groups of producers, they can monitor their competitive position and make proactive changes in their management. Secondary targets are non-participating producers, agricultural educators, and other agricultural professionals including agricultural lenders. Non-participating producers can benefit by the ability to query the FINBIN database for benchmarks for their own operations. Participating agricultural educators receive training to improve their farm financial analysis knowledge and capabilities as well as software to make accurate and useful management information available to their farm students. Other agricultural educators, lenders, and other agricultural professionals have access to summary and benchmark reports of complete farm financial and production information for farms and ranches sorted by location, size, type of farm, debt level, and various types of technology employed. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.
Impacts
Over 3,400 farmers and ranchers in participating farm management educational programs have the ability to directly benchmark their farms against a selected peer group for whole entity and enterprise level financial performance. Non-participating producers can benchmark their farms to identify strengths and weaknesses as compared to the participants. Researchers, educators, and producers from throughout the country have access to summary reports on financial and production performance. Over 157,000 detailed benchmark reports have been generated by producers and educators. Producers and agricultural professionals can generate dynamic benchmark reports to explore financial topics such as differences between GMO crops and non-GMO crops, large and small dairy herds, different tillage systems, farm sizes, and geographic locations. Producers can benchmark hundreds of factors on their farm against similar farms by size, type, and location to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their business. With myFINBIN, participating producers generate direct comparisons of financial and production benchmarks for their farms. A companion project funded by RMA provides financial incentives for organic producers to participate in farm business management education programs and provide benchmark production and financial results to the Uniform project database. FINBIN have been used reports in presentations on Financial Benchmarking at ABA National Agricultural Bankers Conferences, Crop Insurance Conferences, state lenders conferences, and for generating cost of production data for the award winning "Winning the Game" workshop series in several Midwest states.
Publications
- Barrett, Tina, 2008 Annual Report Nebraska Farm/Ranch Business Management, Nebraska Farm Business Association, Lincoln, Nebraska, 2009.
- Brudelie, Al, 2008 Annual Report South Central and Southwestern Minnesota, Jackson, Minnesota, April 2009.
- Dvergsten, Ron and Swenson, Andrew, 2008 Red River Valley Report, North Dakota Farm and Ranch Business Management Education and Minnesota Farm Business Management Education, North Dakota State Board for Vocational and Technical Education, Bismarck, North Dakota, 2009.
- Lecy, DelRay D. and Dvergsten, Ron, Farm Business Management 2008 Annual Report North Central and Northwestern Minnesota, Northland College, Thief River Falls, Minnesota, April 2009.
- Molenaar, Jim, 2009 Annual Report Central and West Central Minnesota Farm Business Management, Ridgewater College, Willmar, Minnesota, April 2009.
- Nordquist, Dale W., Kurtz, James N., Paulson, Garen J., Christensen, James L., and Froslan, Janet M., 2008 Annual Report of the Southwestern Minnesota Farm Business Management Association, Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, April 2009.
- Nordquist, Dale W., 2008 Minnesota Farm Financial Update, Center for Farm Financial Management, University of Minnesota, August 2009.
- Olsen, Jay, Al Dustin, Kathryn Rawson, David Gillman, and Dr. Dillon Feuz, 2008 Annual Report Utah Technology Colleges Farm/Ranch Management, 2009.
- Rohrbach, Norman F., Missouri Farm Business Management Analysis 2008, Department of Agricultural Education, University of Missouri, Columbia, 2009.
- Deters, Eric, 2008 Report of the Farm Business Management Program in Southeastern Minnesota, Riverland Community College, Austin, Minnesota, April 2009.
- Swenson, Andrew, 2008 North Dakota Farm and Ranch Business Management Education Report, North Dakota State Board for Vocational and Technical Education, Bismarck, North Dakota, 2009.
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