About Us

The North Dakota Farm Management Program helps farmers and ranchers improve the financial and business side of their operations by providing hands-on education and one-on-one support. The program works directly with producers to set goals, keep detailed financial and production records, and analyze how their farm is performing. Instructors guide farmers through budgeting, planning, and decision-making using their own farm data, helping them understand costs, profitability, and long-term sustainability. By comparing their operation to similar farms and using real-world benchmarks, farmers gain insight into strengths and areas for improvement, allowing them to make more informed, data-driven decisions to increase efficiency and profitability.

North Dakota Farm Management Provides Instruction/Assistance in Four Major Areas:

Business/Family goal setting

  • Where are we?
  • Where are we going?
  • How do we get there?
  • What do we want to accomplish and when?

Farm/Ranch business records/accounting

Assist farmer/ranchers in all aspects of accounting and records needed for planning and analysis

Planning

  • Budgeting livestock/crop enterprises
  • Whole farm planning
  • Succession/transition planning
  • Partial year cash flow
  • Long-range budgets
  • Marketing
  • Annual cash flow
  • Income tax estimating

…and much more

Business Analysis

  • Create a summary of how the business performed during the year
  • Instruct and assist farm/ranch operators in assembling the information needed to complete the year-end business analysis. The analysis includes:
    1. Income statement
    2. Balance sheet trends
    3. Statement of cash flows
    4. Calculates farm financial standards
    5. Costs and returns to crop and livestock enterprises
    6. Cost of production per unit​