This popular budgeting and economic modeling tool can help when finalizing crop plans for this year.
‘CropChoice$ is a crop planning and risk management decision-making tool that can manage grains, oilseeds, pulses, specialty and forage crops to provide better crop planning decisions,’ explains Manglai, production crops economist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry.
The program helps forecast revenues and margins for that crop enterprise by using inputs and then calculating the probabilities of achieving the results.
He notes that CropChoice$ helps the user make better management decisions about cropping enterprises because it identifies, measures and manages risk.
‘It also helps the user evaluate various risk management strategies such as changing the crop mix, buying crop insurance and negotiating land rental arrangements.’
The latest edition features current crop insurance options, including updated risk coverage levels from the Alberta Financial Services Corporation (AFSC). It also includes projected crop costs covering up to 40 dryland and irrigated crops depending on location.
‘This 2021 version cannot be used to analyze the option of purchasing the Spring Price Endorsement (SPE), as effective March 15, 2021, AFSC announced the SPE program has been discontinued,’ points out Manglai.
‘CropChoice$ recognizes that future crop yields and prices cannot be known precisely,’ he explains. ‘To reflect this, the user enters worst, best and most likely values for yields and prices. Varying yield and price information based on individual expectations will give a clearer and more accurate forecast than traditional linear budgets.’
He adds that the user’s inputs for expected prices and yields in CropChoice$ helps forecast potential gross margins and profitability expectations for several crop plans.
‘It is a very easy program to set up and use, and the manual itself is an excellent resource. Once it is downloaded, double click on the icon, choose start from the welcome screen and get ready to create and compare crop plans.’
These updates support Alberta Agriculture and Forestry’s commitment of risk management decision tools for the crop industry.
Source : alberta