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“Regional Multi-State Enterprise Budgets for Organic Vegetable Crops”

Deacue Fields

Summary

The project developed a series of organic vegetable budgets for the Southeast region of the U.S. The organic market is a rapidly emerging sector reporting annual growth rates that average 15-20 percent annually since 1997. A lack of economic analysis of organic production systems is often cited as a critical need for this sector. The project provided resources to an underserved audience and emerging industry. Six land grant universities in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas and Georgia collaborated to develop the risk management resources. Some specific objectives that the project collaborators hope to address with the enterprise budgets include:
•Provide a framework to compare conventional to organic production systems,
•Reduce production risk by evaluating recommended inputs and production practices required to produce various crops,
•Reduce financial risk by providing producers with detailed cost analysis for a number specialty crop enterprises,
•Provide budget resources to assist in evaluating the efficiency of farm enterprises,
•Improve the producer’s ability to estimate benefits and costs for major changes in production practices and provide the basis for a total farm plan,
•Provide producers with sound—research based—cost estimates to determine cash-flow and borrowing needs, and support applications for credit,
•Provide a framework for non-farmers to evaluate the costs incurred in producing organic crops.

Details

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