Since perennial fruit and nut crops can take several years to mature and yield, producers planning a farm featuring fruit and nut crops can benefit from careful planning. The new “Fruit and Nut Compass” gives producers a framework to make plans before devoting resources to plants and infrastructure.
Perennial Projections
“The Fruit and Nut Compass enables a person to examine the complete costs and expected returns of up to 12 crops simultaneously, as part of an integrated farm plan over 15 years,” explained the developers. “The tool is designed as an ‘open workbench’ where users enter information based on specific plans to assess whether their enterprise will be profitable. It does NOT include any assumptions about crops, yields, costs, or selling prices…those are all data entry tasks for the user. The main questions this tool helps the user answer are: how deep of a financial hole will I be digging, and when might my perennial crop farm become profitable?”
Background
Developed with support from an NCR-SARE Research and Education grant, the tool was conceived and designed by John Hendrickson, Matt Raboin, Jim Munsch, and Leah Potter-Weight in collaboration with the Savanna Institute for the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems (CIAS) at the University of Wisconsin.
Want more information? See the related SARE grant:
- The Fruit and Nut Compass: Developing a Tool and Guiding Principles for Diversified Farms (LNC16-376)
This material is based upon work that is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture through the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or SARE.