Urban Farm Record Keeping

Many urban farms have multiple funding sources and limited acreage on which to produce their crops. Also, many farms use the same plot of land to produce multiple crops in a given production year or season. Because of these issues, record keeping can be very difficult. The purpose of the Urban Farms Record Keeping Tool is to help farms track multiple revenue streams and expenses for more than one crop or from livestock production.

Urban farms are sometimes supported by foundations, grants, or community groups and many farms are used as teaching facilities for youth. The various income sources can be recorded, and the tool will calculate that source's percentage of the income for the season. The user can customize the tool to better fit their farm by using your supporting agency's name for each stream of revenue and the amount of income provided. The tool has space for multiple funding sources.

Due to diverse funding streams and supporting agencies, many farms need to track volunteer time to report to the funding source(s). This tool has space to record volunteer hours and  a place to assign a value to those hours. The tool also has space to record any paid employees and manager or owner's time. The urban farmer resembles the large farm in that they rarely record the owner's time and place a value on that time. It is important to know this amount to understand the true cost of production and to know how much of the profit can be reinvested to grow operations. Many times, you will see the term "returns to management" instead of the term "profit" to account for the income and owner's compensation.

Each tab of the tool contains directions for completing that section of the tool. There are also colored (red) tabs that serve as an example of how to complete the information for the corresponding tab which are also colored (green).

The goal of the tool is to create a whole farm budget for the operation. Due to using the same space multiple times, it would be very difficult to allocate a cost to each use each time the same space is used. You can however use the tool to track one or two crops to determine the profitability of that enterprise. It is recommended that you pick two or more crops each year to track detailed inputs and income to better decide which crops are contributing more revenue to the total farm income. You still need a product mix for your customers and you already understand that some crops need to be produced to complete that product mix at market.

There are two versions of the tool. The first version tracks only crops. The second version tracks crops and livestock, possibly poultry or some other small livestock.

Urban Farm Records with Livestock

Urban Farm Records 

This project is funded through the USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant: ME44187248