Air January 1, 2003

Thank you Gary, and Happy New Year everyone. I hope everyone has been having a happy holiday season. It’s been a good one for me! But now here we are in a new year. 2002 is history and on we move. But of course, before we can close the book on 2002, there’s a little bit of paperwork that has to be done.

Taxes - yup, let me be the first to spoil the first day of your new year with that ugly word. Get started on them now, because getting your farms books closed should be a chance to look at the different enterprise centers of your farm to help you determine one of the most important figures for your farm. It isn’t your gross or net income, it isn’t even your net profit. But rather it is your costs of production. Cost of production for each and every crop or livestock enterprise you have should be the dictating factor for your production and marketing decisions. How can you know when to sell a crop, if you don’t know what your breakeven price is? When someone tells me that their marketing objective is to hit the top of the market then I view this as a sure sign that someone doesn’t know their costs of production. Take the time to make your book keeping more than just an exercise in taxation.

The second bit of paperwork is that little thing that comes around every five years called the census of agriculture. The census packets were supposed to have been mailed the week before Christmas. If you still haven’t gotten yours and you own or operate a farm, give me a call and we’ll see what we can do. Now, take the time to fill that out. Since the questions pertain to your 2002 production year it’ll work out really well to do this at the same time that you are figuring out your year end books and taxes. And a lot of the same information may well be needed on both forms. Most of you will get the "short" form, and I say that half tongue in cheek. The other 20% of you will get to muddle through about 6 more pages worth of questions. If you do have any questions on your census of agriculture you can give me a call!

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2003, wishing you a Happy New Year.

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