Organic Grain Crop Enterprise Budgets

These Penn State University Organic Grain Crop Enterprise Budgets estimate returns and selected costs for a common, 3-year, organic grain rotation of small grains, corn, and soybeans. Organic producers often include cover crops in their rotations to help manage pests and soil fertility, however costs for these crops are often not captured within a single crop budget. To help organic producers better understand the economic impact associated with longer crop rotations, cover crop data is included within each year where they follow a cash crop. The budgets attempt to reflect a three-year rotation, but data is presented individually by crop year.

The enterprise budgets are customizable and farm managers can tailor them to their unique management practices by entering their own values into the spreadsheets. This allows managers to account for many possible organic grain production practices used across geographic locations. On-farm values can be compared to estimates determined at Penn State research trials, which were based on costs and returns associated with studies conducted at Penn State University's Russell E. Larson Research and Education Center in Central Pennsylvania. These budgets can serve as a starting point for individual producers to understand their own specific enterprises and situations.