With increasingly thin margins and new technologies, it is important that
farm managers know their cost of field operations on a per unit basis (e.g.,
acre, ton, bale). Accurate per unit costs give confidence when constructing
enterprise budgets and evaluating new technologies, such as no-till. Custom
rates are often used as a proxy for per unit costs; however, this research,
using entropy and jackknife estimation procedures, found that custom rates
understate total ownership and operating costs by approximately 25% for an
average Kansas farm. Estimates from these models are then used to benchmark
actual costs against expected cost.