


"About 15 years ago I was working with researchers from the University of Minnesota and the
Minnesota Dept. of Agriculture on ways to better determine costs of production on family farms
in Minnesota. One of the key questions that we wanted and needed to attempt to answer was fuel
consumption per operation across a field and ultimately across the farm for the particular
growing season for a particular crop. In the end we were forced to abandon this effort because
the data collecting and ultimately the number crunching just became overwhelming. It wasn't long
after abandoning this effort that I was put in touch with the ARS researchers at Morris, Minnesota
who were just in the beginning stages of developing a software program that in part was meant to
compile and analyze this very data.
The unique thing about this effort, however, was that the researchers were seeking many of their
input directions from actual farmers operating the equipment on their own farms. Over the course
of about 10 years a program called Farmwin was developed and I use it every year now to study many
of my input costs in great detail. One of the most revealing pieces of data that I was able to gain
was the actual fuel costs I incur each year. These costs are broken down not only by crop and field
but by piece of equipment as well. As a result I have become very conscious about the number of
trips that I now make across a field each growing season. In an organic management system such as
mine, this is a very critical piece of information as mechanical weed management is an integral
part of the operation. There are many other pieces of information that Farmwin can provide. And
even with all of this data collecting on the part of the producer, I am fully confident that once
the operator's farm has been set up in the program that an entire year's data of field operations
from seed bed preparation to harvest can be entered in eight to ten hours of time...."
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