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About Farm Rate Book
A plain, fast set of farm-numbers tools. Custom rates come first; a ballast calculator, auger capacity tool and flexible cash-rent lease calculator are planned.
How the custom rate data is built
- Download each state’s most recent custom rate survey from the university extension or state agriculture department.
- Copy every published statewide rate from the PDF text into a structured file: state, year, job, unit, average, range, number of responses, and page.
- Skip anything not published as a dollar rate, withheld, or unreadable, and log it. Never estimate a missing number.
- Group jobs that match across surveys under one name, keeping each survey’s own wording.
- Flag rows with few responses, rows far from other states, and places where a report’s text disagrees with its table.
Things to keep in mind
- Surveys are from different years (Iowa 2026, Nebraska 2026, Kansas 2026, Ohio 2026, Missouri 2025, Indiana 2025, Wisconsin 2025, North Dakota 2024). Nothing is adjusted for inflation.
- Most surveys include fuel and labor in the rate. Only some state the diesel price they assumed (Iowa $2.89, Nebraska $2.93, North Dakota respondents about $3.2–3.3). For the others, the calculator asks you for the baseline.
- “Range” means different things in different reports (full min–max, min–max excluding extremes, or average ± one standard deviation). Each page says which.
- An average from 3 responses is not the same as one from 100. Check the response count.
- Minnesota and Illinois don’t publish custom rate surveys. Their pages show Iowa’s 2026 survey rates as a labeled reference; they are not separate data and aren’t counted in comparisons. More.
Survey averages, not quotes. These are averages of what people reported in extension surveys. Use them as a starting point for a conversation, not as a price.
Advertising and sponsors
Spots marked “placeholder” show where a sponsor or ad could go later. There are no paid placements, testimonials, or endorsements on this prototype.