Commodity Costs and Returns

Cost and return estimates are reported for the United States and major production regions for corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, grain sorghum, rice, peanuts, oats, barley, milk, hogs, and cow-calf. The history of commodity cost and return estimates for the U.S. and regions is divided into three categories: Current, Recent, and Historical estimates. Cost-of Production Forecasts are also available for major U.S. field crops.

Note: The procedure used to update the opportunity cost of land in all crop production cost and return accounts was changed in the October 1, 2013 update. Changes in cropland cash rents, reported by the National Agricultural Statistics Service, were used to adjust the land cost from the survey to the update year. This procedure is an improvement over changes in the general land cash rent index that was previously used. The new procedure was implemented for the land cost estimate of each commodity from the most recent survey year of the commodity through the most recent update. 

Also see the ERS Milk Cost of Production Estimates data product.

Errata: On May 24, 2017, the milk cost and return estimates for 2013 and 2014 in the U.S. and Fruitful Rim were reposted to correct an error in the purchased feed costs used to construct these estimates.  The error was due to revisions in the dairy feed price data that were not incorporated in the index used to reflect 2013 and 2014 prices.  These updates are now reflected in the 2013 and 2014 milk cost and return estimates.