Business Management

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“Fact Sheet #539: Assessing and Improving Farm Profitability”

     Is my farm making money? This is a question farm managers think about often. To stay in business, the farm must generate a profit, at least in the long run. One of several important management tasks for farm managers, therefore, is assessing and improving farm profitability. This fact sheet explains profit and profitability and discusses ideas for improving farm performance. It also discusses the use of an income statement in analyzing profit and profitability.

What Is Profit?

     A farm that grows 500 acres of corn would generate income from the corn. To calculate profit, you normally subtract the operating costs of seed, fertilizer, pesticides, fuel, interest, hired labor, others, from the year's income. Growing corn also requires machinery and sometimes buildings, which add to the costs of the farm. But since these items last for several years, you do not subtract the entire cost for use of equipment and buildings the year they are purchased. Instead , you depreciate their value; that is, you prorate their cost over the useful life of the machinery and buildings so you charge only part of the cost against each year's income. When you subtract operating costs and depreciation from the annual farm income, the result is commonly called net farm profit.

     There are other costs associated with your farmland, labor and management that ought to be considered. You could be renting your land to someone else to generate income. Also, you should put a value on your personal labor and management since you could be earning income from an off-farm job on the side or if you were not managing a farm. These alternative values for land, labor and management are called opportunity costs or the income that you could be receiving by investing these resources in the next best alternative use.

What Is Profitability?

     You relate profit to opportunity costs through the concept of profitability. "Profit" and "Profitability" are not the same. When discussing profitability, you consider the relationship of net farm profit to your farmland, and the labor and management skills you invest in the farm business. For example, if your farm generated a net farm profit of $40,000 last year, what does this say about your farm's performance? To many smaller farms with a single owner or operator, a net income of $40,000 might be considered a good profit, but to larger farms with more than one owner or operator, $40,000 might be a poor showing for the year.

     When comparing different sizes and types of farms to assess your farm's performance, you use profitability measurements such as: operator labor and management earnings, rate of return on equity or net worth, and rate of return on investment.

Operator Labor and Management Earnings

     Most farmers own at least part of the resources they use in the farm business. The farmer's share is referred to as equity or net worth (see Fact Sheet 540, Assessing and Improving Farm Solvency, for more details about equity or net worth). A mistake is often made in concluding that net farm profit is the return to operator labor and management without considering a return to this equity or net worth. To find the true operator labor and management earnings, subtract first a reasonable amount as a return on the equity or net worth.

     In this calculation, how should the return on equity be valued? Consider the interest that you could generate if your equity were invested elsewhere. A minimum interest rate that is commonly used is 6 percent. To illustrate, take the case of the Whitmer family (a fictitious family used here as an example). The Whitmers have an equity of $210,000 invested in the farm and generated a profit of $40,000 the past year. Using the minimum 6 percent interest rate as the return on equity, the operator labor and management earnings would be:

Rate of Return on Equity

     Rate of return on equity is another important measure of your farm's profitability. What rate of return is the Whitmer farm making on the equity in the business? In calculating the operator labor and management earnings, the Whitmers have made an assumption based on a 6 percent rate of return. However, they could similarly assume a value for operator labor and management and then calculate the rate of return on equity.

     In this calculation, how should labor and management be valued? Family living expense may be a reasonable value. Some suggest an estimate of the wage or salary that a farmer could be receiving from a fulltime job off the farm. Another commonly used figure is $5 per hour plus 5 percent of the value of farm production. Suppose the Whitmer farm, in our example, generates $130,000 in value of farm production of which $40,000 is net farm profit. The owner works 2,500 hours per year on the farm. The rate of return on equity could be calculated as follows:

     This situation shows lower operator labor and management earnings and a higher rate of return on equity. Keep in mind that the returns are subjectively allocated to different resources. Overvaluing one resource will understate the return to other resources.

     After calculating operator labor and management earnings and rate of return on equity you might ask, "How does my farm measure up?" Your best measurement guide is to compare these figures to what you think your labor and management are worth and the return you could get on your equity elsewhere.

Rate of Return on Investment

     To a farmer who has considerable debt or is considering changes in the business and will need to borrow money, the rate of return on investment is important. Unlike the return on equity, which only looks at the owner's share of the business, the rate of return on investment indicates the return on the entire farm investment, including the debt-financed portion.

     The rate of return on investment should be higher than the interest rate paid on debt. If so, the investment is earning enough to pay the interest with some left over for business growth. This measurement becomes more important as the level of farm debt increases. As the business approaches 100 percent debt financing, the farm must earn a rate of return at least equal to the debt interest rate or it will not be able to meet interest expenses and farm equity may decline. The following example illustrates this concept.

     The Whitmers and the Cowderys (two fictitious families) have each invested $350,000. Each family pays the same 10 percent interest rate (see Table 1). However, the Whitmer farm is 40 percent in debt while the Cowdery farm is 80 percent in debt. Table 1 illustrates three different rates of return on farm investment.

     In Case #2, the rate of return on investment is equal to the interest rate paid, so the rate of return on investment equals the rate of return on equity on both farms. In Case #3, with a 16 percent rate of return on investment, the Cowdery farm has an impressive rate of return on equity which reflects a higher farm business growth rate than the Whitmer farm. However, the Cowdery farm faces more risks for if the rate of return on investment decreases to 4 percent as in Case #1, it will have a negative rate of return on equity in comparison to the Whitmer Farm which has a 0 percent rate of return on equity

How Can I Improve Farm Profitability?

     Generating profits and increasing profitability are underlying concepts that should influence your decisions as a farm manager. Many things you do affect the level of profit. This, in turn, determines your standard of living and the growth potential of the farm business. A good farm manager should ask himself or herself the following questions often:

• Am I making the most profitable use of my land and building resources with crop and livestock enterprises I have chosen?
• Are my operating inputs at the optimal level?
• Is my equipment the proper size for my farm?
• Do I acquire the most favorable terms on borrowed money?
• Does my borrowed money earn a rate of return greater than the interest rate I pay?
• Are my field operations timely?
• Do I plan and carry out good marketing strategies?
• Do I make good use of my time and hired labor?
• Do I take advantage of new technologies?
• Are there custom field work or off-farm employment opportunities that could augment my farm income?
• Do I maintain good business relations with others?
• Do I manage my taxes to increase after tax income?
• Are my family living allowances reasonable?
• Am I allowing my farm operation to grow by putting back some of my profits into the business?

     There is no one clear path to improving profits and profitability. Rather, profitability is a state of mind in which a farm manager carefully controls every aspect of the operation to make the most profitable use of the resources available to the farm business.

What Is Enterprise Profitability?

     We have discussed profits and profitability in relation to the whole farm. Since your farm is made up of crop and livestock enterprises, you must view each enterprise as a separate profit center so you can determine which enterprise contributes to the overall profitability of the farm and which one does not. You can then decide what to do with the less profitable enterprises.

     Calculating profits for individual enterprises is similar to calculating profits for the entire farm, with one difference. In your calculations, you include only income and expenses pertaining to the individual enterprise. This process, called enterprise budgeting, is discussed in detail in Fact Sheet 542, Enterprise Budgets in Farm Management Decisionmaking.

How Do I Use an Income Statement to Calculate Profit?

     Good farm records are important tools in managing the farm business (see Fact Sheet 542, Developing and Improving Your Farm Records). To calculate your farm profits and assess your farm profitability, use your Income Statement, sometimes called Profit-and-Loss Statement.

     Your income statement should cover a given accounting period, such as one year, and which often coincides with the calendar year. It summarizes income, expenses and profit for a farm operation, Two different accounting methods, cash and accrual, are used in preparing income statements. Most farmers use cash income statements to calculate income for tax purposes. With this method, you determine profit by using cash receipts, cash expenses and depreciation recorded during the accounting period. However, this method does not give an accurate picture of business profit or loss during the period. Accelerating or postponing sales and expenses from one accounting period to another can distort the profit. Overlooking inventory changes, capital sales and capital purchases may further misrepresent profit.

     Accrual accounting adjustments to your cash Income statement solve this problem. By including inventory changes and capital adjustments in your income statement, you get a more accurate measure of profit. This fact sheet includes an example accrual income statement for the Whitmer farm (Table 2.) as well as a blank accrual statement form.

The sample accrual income statement is shown below:

• View the printable example, or
• Download as Spreadsheet -(works with MICROSOFT EXCEL)

• View the blank printable statement, or
• Download as Spreadsheet -(works with MICROSOFT EXCEL)

     Cash farm income. In the cash farm income section of your income statement, list the sources and values of your cash farm income. Include receipts from sales of crops, livestock, livestock products and government payments from commodity programs. Include also, income received for custom work, co-op patronage dividends, and other such items. The Whitmer farm (in the sample accrual income statement) generated $134,410 income from corn, soybeans, hog sales and payments from participation in government commodity programs.

     Cash operating expenses. Under cash operating expenses, include those associated with the operation of the farm business. In addition to variable production expenses such as feed, seed, fertilizer, short-term interest on operating capital, and supplies, include fixed cash expenses such as taxes, insurance and interest on intermediate and long-term loans. In the Whitmer accrual income statement, cash operating expenses are listed by category giving a total of $97,170. Total cash operating expenses minus total cash income result in a net cash farm income of $37,240.

     Inventory changes. A problem arises when your inventories of crops, market livestock and other items are higher or lower at the end of the accounting period than at the beginning. Thus, you either understate or overstate your net cash farm income. The section on "Inventory Change" makes accrual adjustment to the cash income and expenses to solve this problem.

     In the Whitmer example, inventories of market livestock (hogs) are $6,200 higher at the end of the period than at the beginning of the period. By subtracting the beginning inventory to exclude sales of market livestock from the previous year and adding an ending inventory which includes production for this year which has not been sold, the proper accrual adjustment is made to the net cash farm income. Other inventory categories are adjusted so items incurred during this period are included and those items incurred in the previous period are excluded. After all inventory changes are totaled, the example shows that inventories are $6,350 higher at the end of the accounting period than they are in the beginning. This is added to the net cash farm income to get a net operating profit of $43,590.

     Depreciation and other capital adjustments. Your income statement should consider depreciation and other capital adjustments next. These adjustments are calculated by subtracting beginning inventories and capital purchases for each asset category from the ending inventories and capital sales. In the Whitmer example, the value of these assets on the farm operation decreased $7,400 in value from depreciation and change in inventory due to capital sales and purchases. After subtracting the $7,400 from the net operating profit, the total profit on this farm for the accounting period is $36,190.

     Profitability. your accrual income statement should give a picture of business profit for the accounting period. However, the analysis is not complete at this point. Profit should be related to the resources used in the business through profitability measurements discussed earlier in the fact sheet. Table 3 below shows the profitability measures for the Whitmer farm. The profit (return on labor, management and net worth) of $36,190 is listed first followed by the three profitability measurements. The formulas for calculating the measurements are also listed. The items starting with "(13) Interest on farm net worth" contain the information needed to calculate the profitability measures. The Whitmer farm was profitable the past year. It had positive labor and management earnings. Rates of return on equity and investment equaled or exceeded many alternative investment rates. Management on this farm should build on this positive financial position to maintain farm profitability well into the future.

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