The 2010 ASHS Annual Conference

Agricultural producers often make large up-front investments in producing and establishing cropping systems, purchasing equipment, buildings or new technologies in hopes of making a reasonable return on their investment.  Misjudging the costs and potential returns of such investments can result in serious financial difficulty. However, adequate compensation can come to those who have the information, develop strategies, and perform sensitivity analyzes before implementing a decision. The AgTools™ for Managing Financial Risk in Agriculture website hosts a suite of software programs with the aim to help agricultural crop producers make better decisions to manage the financial risk in agriculture.  Currently five programs are available to U.S. agribusinesses – AgProfit™, AgLease™, AgFinance™, AgPlan™, and Tree Loss Calculator.

Agriculture’s Profitability Tool (AgProfit™) is designed to assist producers make long-run decisions by estimating machinery, building, labor, and production input costs and total yield for calculating returns for crops with multiple establishment and production years. The program can inflate return and input cost items over time to analyze the net present value, internal rate of return, and financial feasibility. 

Agriculture’s Crop Lease Tool (AgLease™) is designed to assist growers and landowners establish equitable crop share and cash rent lease agreements. With AgLease™ you can easily comprehend and evaluate the potential risks associated with annual and long-term leases; reevaluate current leases, or changing cropping systems. The program allows you to inflate specific return and input cost items over time to analyze the net present value, internal rate of return, and financial feasibility for a crop share and cash rent lease.

Agriculture’s Financial Tool (AgFinance™) is designed to assist agricultural producers make long-run decisions on a whole farm basis. You can load scenario files from AgProfit™ and AgLease™ to analyze your farm’s financial ratios and performance measures, which include working capital, current, debt-to-asset, and debt-to-equity ratios, earned net worth and net worth.

AgPlan™ helps rural business owners develop a business plan.  It is designed to provide customized assistance to different types of businesses.

Tree Loss Calculator are spreadsheets designed to calculate the economic value of a pear, apple or cherry tree lost to external factors, such as hit by a vehicle. The value of this loss is dependent upon the value of the fruit, productivity of the lost tree, and years for which a new tree to produce the same amount of fruit as the lost tree.