Proper record keeping is a management practice that all farmers need to be utilizing. It can save producers time and money when deciding what to grow for the upcoming season.
Jessie Boswell, Alabama Regional Extension agent, believes producers will benefit financially if they keep annual records of how productive their crops are. This is especially true for growers who produce multiple crops.
“I do encourage detailed record keeping for any farmer, but especially for a farmer maybe growing several different types of crops. It’s really important to keep track of the revenue and the costs associated with each specific crop because you really want to be able to analyze each individual crop to see which ones you might want to expand and which ones you might want to cut back on,” said Boswell during a Q&A session on the Alabama Extension Commercial Horticulture Facebook page.
“It also can be used to compare the profitability of different practices, like say you have one crop where you use conventional tillage, and you have another crop where you no-till. If you look, you can say, I make a lot more money on this no-till operation. I save a lot of money on labor and machinery. Keeping track of those can help you look back and see which specific crops you’re making money on. Instead of your farm as a whole being profitable or unprofitable, you can look and see which crop is your money maker, your cash cow and which one you might be losing money on.”