MSU Extension unveils new crop production cost estimation tool

Free spreadsheets are available to help growers estimate costs and explore cost-saving opportunities.

Published July 28, 2015

Greenhouse growers should evaluate their production costs to determine if adjustments need to be made to stay competitive. To accomplish this, growers need to have a good handle on their costs. Michigan State University Extension has developed a set of free software to help you evaluate your greenhouse business from a financial perspective. “Estimating the Production Costs of Greenhouse Crops” is a spreadsheet-type of software tool that allows you to use your records to estimate your production costs and explore opportunities for cost savings, according to a release from Michigan State University Extension. 

The blank spreadsheet for up to 100 crops, an example spreadsheet and an auto-tutorial video are now located on the MSU Farm Information Resource Management (FIRM) website under Budgets, Cost of Production and Decision Making Tools.Scroll down the page to the “Fruit, Vegetable, Nursery, Orchard, Greenhouse” section and the spreadsheets and video will be located there.

Using our spreadsheet designed to run with Microsoft Excel 97 or later, growers can input current costs from tax returns, invoices and quotes to estimate cost of production and project sale prices on a per plant basis for each enterprise. The spreadsheet was designed to provide adequate flexibility to enable individual greenhouses to use it for their specific operation. The spreadsheet has 10 interlinked worksheets.
 
For additional assistance, please contact me at dudek@anr.msu.edu  or 616-994-4542.
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