1998 BUSINESS ANALYSIS SUMMARY FOR GENERAL CROPS FARMS

This report is a summary of the financial and production records kept by general crops farmers, who were enrolled in the Telfarm/MicroTel record program through Michigan State University Extension. Farm records were included if a Finan summary was completed on 1998 data including beginning and ending balance sheets, plus income and expenses. The summary was included if cash discrepancy was less than 10 % of gross cash inflow, and if the debt discrepancy was less than $1,000. Averages are reported in the tables below. Variability exists in the data. The unweighted mean of net farm income for the 16 farms was $(22,565); the standard deviation of the mean was $45,035 and the median was $(18,361). The unweighted mean of acres cropped, both owned plus rented, for the 15 farms that reported acreage was 860 acres; the standard deviation of the mean was 775 acres and the median was 589 acres. This report has three purposes: 1) to provide statistical information about the financial results on general crops farms during 1998; 2)to provide production costs for comparative analysis and forward planning; and 3) to provide information on the trends in resource use, income and costs during the last few years. For general crop farm averages for 1995, see Staff Paper No. 96-86, Michigan Farm Database, New Directions for 1995; it contains averages of 11 general crops farms calculated with Finansum. Staff Paper No. 97-32, Business Analysis Summary for General Crops Farms, contains averages of 7 general crops farms for 1996. Staff Paper No. 98-18, 1997 Business Analysis Summary for General Crop Farms contains averages for 14 farms. These staff papers are available from us. Finansum allows rapid analysis of group averages with some degree of choice over how the results are presented. We prefer to show the average of the high or low 25 percent by rate of return on farm assets, but only if the 25 percent means 6 or more farms. In order to get at least 6 farms, we increased the percentage to 38 for the general crops farms. A farm was accepted in the average regardless of whether the farm was a proprietorship, partnership, limited liability company, or corporation. Finansum will produce a variety of report options; a subset is included in this publication