AgMRC Renewable Energy Newsletter
Created July 2008
(updated monthly)

Don Hofstrand                                                                         
Co-director, Ag Marketing Resource Center
Iowa State University Extension
dhof@iastate.edu 

The profitability of producing                             View the monthly profitability and
corn varies greatly from year to                                underlying assumptions.
year and within years.  To track
this variability we have developed typical
corn farming enterprises that represent farms in central and northern Iowa.  We track the monthly profitability of corn production by comparing the break-even cost of production to the monthly corn selling price. The analysis shows the per bushel profit (loss) potential each month.

The cost of corn production varies greatly depending on the land ownership arrangement. So, the monthly profitability is computed under three land ownership scenarios.

• The farmland is owned by the farm operator (debt free).
• The farm operator rents the farmland from a landlord.
• The farm operator owns forty percent of the farmland and rents the remaining sixty percent.

The analysis is updated monthly to show the current profitability. It will be available each month in future newsletters.