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