08/13/2021

"Labor and machinery variances are just awesome," according to the latest corn and soybean cost of production benchmarks presented by John McNutt, LATTAHARRIS and Moe Russell, RUSSELL CONSULTING GROUP. 

Well, "awesome" may not be the term producers would commonly use to describe variances in production costs. In this 2019 presentation, Moe Russell (long-term ASAC Member) and John McNutt provide an insightful review of changes in production costs in the 10 years previous.

Here are some of the key findings:



 

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• "Even though machinery costs have effectively doubled since 2010 they are more profitable (because of precision farming technology)."
• "We're constantly studying (economic) depreciation."
• “You can’t manage what you don’t see.”
• "What amazes me is the variability of the data. The outliers on the bottom side in most cases don’t know what their data is or if they have it they don’t analyze it and look at it. You’d think in the last 20 years we would have gotten more sophisticated about knowing where we’re at and headed, but we still have a long, long way to go."

Follow this link to their full presentation on the topic, which was provided at the FBS Ag Software Success Summit that year.
FBS Ag Software Success Summit

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Posted by Don Tyler