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Alberta crop budgeting and risk management tool now updated

Apr. 9, 2013, Edmonton, AB - CropChoice$, Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development's budgeting and risk management decision-making tool, has been updated for the 2013 crop year.

CropChoice$ is a crop planning software tool that helps grain, oilseed, pulse and special crop producers make better crop planning decisions using information from their own farm.

The update includes current crop insurance options, including updated risk coverage levels and insurance premiums from AFSC, along with projected crop costs covering up to 40 dryland and irrigated crops depending on location.

"The program helps forecast revenues and margins for the crop enterprise using producer input and then calculates the probabilities of achieving those result," says Jason Wood, production crops economist with Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development (AARD).

CropChoice$ helps users make better management decisions about cropping enterprises because it identifies, measures and manages risk. CropChoice$ also helps producers evaluate various risk management strategies such as changing the crop mix, buying crop insurance and negotiating land rental arrangements. The program assists in measuring the risk associated with the crop plan and evaluates the effects of potential risk management strategies that match a farmer's personal management style.

With traditional crop planning tools, only single estimates of yields and prices are applied. CropChoice$ recognizes that future crop yields and prices cannot be known precisely. To reflect this, producers enter worst, best, and most likely values for yields and prices. Varying yield and price information based on individual expectations will give a clearer and more accurate forecast than traditional linear budgets. It is the user input for expected prices and yields in CropChoice$ that helps forecast potential gross margins and profitability expectations for several crop plans.

The updated software can be downloaded free of charge from http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/softdown.nsf/main?openform&type=CropChoice$&page=download.

 

April 9, 2013  By Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development


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