Estimated Returns for Wholesale Commercial Vegetable Production in Kentucky

Expansion of commercial vegetable production in Kentucky prompted the updating of the 1998 commercial vegetable budget estimates for Kentucky’s major commercial vegetables in 2000. Updates continued throughout subsequent seasons. These estimated returns to land, labor, and management sought to convey a conservative profitability estimate for comparative purposes among existing and potential commercial vegetable producers. A copy of current budget estimates can be found at this Web site: . Return to land, capital, labor, and management is defined as the return above variable and fixed production costs incurred during the production year. Variable production costs include cash costs incurred in crop production such as seed, fertilizer, harvest labor, packaging, marketing, and pesticides. Fixed production costs include noncash costs incurred in vegetable crop production such as depreciation on machinery and irrigation equipment. The estimated returns are listed in Table 1. It should be noted that vegetable production practices and costs vary throughout different regions of the state. Therefore, these estimated returns are best used as a guide for simply comparing profitability between crops. It should also be noted that these estimates are based on wholesale prices received by the producer. Producers utilizing on-farm retail or other direct marketing strategies can usually expect significantly greater returns per acre.