The Crop Farm

How these numbers were built: per-acre costs and owner earnings follow the University of Illinois farmdoc 2027 crop budgets (corn on cash-rented ground) and USDA cost data reported by NCGA, with the cash rent default near the USDA NASS 2025 average for non-irrigated cropland; the planning price sits between USDA’s August 2026 WASDE projection ($4.50) and the farmdoc budget price ($5.00); the cost to open comes from the opening kit, priced from machinery dealer and auction listings, University of Arkansas machinery prices, and farmdoc input budgets; recent farm finances come from FINBIN data reported by farmdoc daily; wages from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (SOC 45-2092); SBA loan outcomes from PeerSense; resale multiples from BizBuySell; financing terms from the USDA Farm Service Agency and the SBA; and survival signals from the Census Bureau Business Dynamics Statistics. Because farming is seasonal, every monthly figure here is an average month across the whole year, and the two biggest drivers, yield and price, are outside the operator’s control, so a real year can land far above or below it. These are starting assumptions; the moment you enter a real operation’s acres, yields, input costs, and rent, your numbers should replace ours.

The margin band was labeled a net operating margin; it is now stated on the owner cash flow (SDE) basis the app shows, before machinery payments and the owner’s own pay, and sourced to the farmdoc 2027 Illinois crop budgets (about 10% to 15% of revenue for corn on cash-rented ground at $5.00), which fall inside the same 8% to 18% band. Recent results come from FINBIN data reported by farmdoc daily; land and rent from USDA NASS. Per-farm SDE benchmarks are not published for row crops the way they are for small businesses, so the band is marked estimated.