By Mary Hightower
U of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture

LITTLE ROCK — At a time when profit margins seem stuck between thin and zero, Arkansas farmers have another tool to help them make decisions to stay out of the red.

The Arkansas Crop Profit/Loss Calculator is a web-based decision tool designed to provide producers and other stakeholders with the profit-and-loss potential of producing a crop in Arkansas this year.

Hunter Biram, extension economist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture said, “This is a tool I have wanted to create for some time now, but seeing these historically low commodity prices heading into the 2025 growing season had me thinking, ‘What crop can a farmer produce and minimize loss or break even?’

Extension Economist Hunter Biram wanted to create a tool to help farmers, especially at a time when margins are thin to none. (U of A System Divsiion of Agriculture photo)

“In my travels across the state this winter, I have used the tool to help farmers be informed as to what appears to be the best crop choices,” he said.

Biram said he and fellow Extension Economist Ryan Loy were able to piece the tool together in a few weeks.

“The main feature of the tool is a table which populates with returns net of expenses once users input their county, crop, irrigation practice, and rental agreement,” Biram said. “The resulting table represents operating profit only – those returns above the cost of production.

“Fixed expenses such as capital recovery, taxes and depreciation are not included in the calculations,” said Biram. “A user may input his or her own farm-specific costs to capture these fixed expenses.”

Operating expenses are taken from the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture Crop Enterprise Budgets.

Calculator’s foundations

The tool only provides tables for county-crop combinations in Arkansas for which yield data is available. Expected yields are calculated based on historical county yield data reported by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service with the earliest year considered being 1960.

The tool uses expected season-average cash prices based on commodity futures contracts and state-level cash prices received. The final expected price is the sum of a 30-day average harvest futures contract and expected basis is determined by taking the average difference between the futures price and state-level cash price received over time.

A link to the Arkansas Crop Profit/Loss Calculator may be found here: https://hunterbiram.shinyapps.io/ArkansasCropProfitLoss2025/.

The “Download PDF Table” option is currently not working, but a PDF report of the table output may be provided by emailing hdbiram@uark.edu. Alternatively, one can take a screenshot of the window on a computer.

To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on X and Instagram at @AR_Extension. To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow on X at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on X at @AgInArk.