The University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Center for Agricultural Profitability has scheduled a series of training workshops for its new online Agricultural Budget Calculator tool.

The Agricultural Budget Calculator (ABC) is a free enterprise-budgeting and decision-making tool that is designed to assist agricultural producers in determining their cost of production and projected cash and economic returns for various farm or ranch enterprises.

“Knowing the cost of production for our agricultural enterprises is even more critical now, with a larger investment due to higher input and operation costs,” said Glennis McClure, an extension educator and farm and ranch management analyst with the Center for Agricultural Profitability. “Estimating your cost of production can assist in making important management decisions now and throughout the production and marketing year.”

McClure, who works closely with the ABC tool and university commodity budgets, will facilitate the workshops. She will demonstrate the program’s features and teach participants how to get started and use the program. A hands-on practice session will offer users the opportunity to begin creating their own enterprise budgets. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own laptop computer to use during the workshop. If needed, mobile lab computers will be available for use. Workshop topics will include: downloading and using university crop budgets as a guide; how to create customized crop budgets for owned and rented farms; how to enter field operations and material inputs and determine costs on a per-field basis; how to generate enterprise reports that include cash costs, economic costs and anticipated returns; the use of analysis features, including the risk module; and more.

The workshops are free to attend, but registration is required. For more about the Agricultural Budget Calculator, and to register for an in-person or online training, visit https://cap.unl.edu/abc.