How much do farmers earn when they make wheat?

Question

How much do farmers earn when they make wheat?

Answer 1

about 400 dollars per hectarea

Answer 2

That depends on how many bushels of wheat per acre the farmer produces, what price he/she sold the wheat for, what the cost of inputs for the crop were (fertilizer, seed, insecticide if used, fungicides if used), land payments, equipment payments, fuel costs, taxes. The list goes on and on.

Nation wide average, I think, is around 50 bushels per acre. IF they sold their wheat for $8.00/bu, that would be $400 per acre gross. Then they have to take out all the above costs from that $400/acre. What's left is how much they made. Where I live, they will irrigate a lot of wheat acres and will average between 80 and 120 bushels per acre, but you have to add the cost of irrigation which can be as much as $4000 per month (on 120 acres) when you irrigate.

Answer 3

There are so many factors that come into play in this.  First of all, wheat prices are always changing because of the market.  This year you may make $10/bushel, but next year at the same time you may only make $7/bushel.  Plus, you have to factor in things like cost of production, the weather, and a LOT more.  There is no one dollar amount that applies here..

Incomes of farmers vary from year to year. A farm may show a profit one year and a loss the next. Farmers often get government payments to supplement their incomes and reduce the risk of farming. Many farmers have income from off-farm careers.

Answer 4

Sounds like IOU101 is the only one with any actual experience here, whether you like his answer or not.  As for the government payments, farmers dont get as many as people think. To qualify for a majority of these fabled payments you have to first have crop insurance, which puts the small farmer in even more of a bind.  The one making the most money are the brokers and the mills unless you can haul to a mill yourself, but then you still have to be able to sell to a mill before a broker takes all their space and then you are stuck selling to the broker- out of luck again (always).

Answer 5

Like all grain, wheat prices fluctuate, but right now it's around $8 per bushel.  But don't forget to take costs out of that...cost of seed, fertilizer, etc.  Fuel to power the tractors and equipment through the different stages of planting to harvest is the big one right now of course.  It takes ALOT of fuel to maintain a field from spring to fall.

With the floods in Iowa I expect the prices will rise.  But one thing is certain...its not the farmers who will be making the majority of the profit from wheat or any otherMonsantoit's where it goes after the farmers sell it.  Cargill, Monsanto, ADM, and on down the line.

Answer 6

I realize that wheat prices are currently going nuts on the Stock Market.

Just because the price is wild there, does not mean that all wheat FARMERS are making a good living.  The middle men sure are though.

There are actually wheat farmers around me who are being driven out of business.  The price of fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, ect has all skyrocketed (they are all petrolium based products).  The price of fuel has increased the price of planting, harvesting, drying the wheat, ect.  

Despite the higher prices, the increased price of everything else has actually kept some farmers at exactly the same financial level they were, or driven others out of business.

There are many, many factors to take into acount.  

Did wind, rain, hail, or a microburst tornado flatten a lot of their wheat...MUCH harder to harvest.

Is their equipment paid for?

Do they have family helping with harvest, or is it all hired hands?

Do they own silos they can store the grain in, and wait until winter and sell at the highest prices? Or do they have to sell as soon as they harvest?

Is their wheat organic?

Did they plant with "no till" farming?

Do they still have a mortgage to pay?

Do they have loans to pay?

Did they have a lot of breakdowns with the equipment?

Are they allowed to burn the stubble in the fields, or do they have to plow it under?  (Fire cheap, plowing expensive)

Do they live near a plant that will buy the straw, and turn it into a biofuel?

Do they have a big demand for the straw bales, or is the straw just a waste product to be scattered back over the field during harvest?

There are hundreds, if not thousands of factors that need to be taken into account.  Farming is not cut and dry, black, and white.  

If you are an organic farmer, who plants with no till methods, owns the land, and equipment free and clear, has family to help with harvest, owns a silo free and clear to store the grain in until winter or spring brings top prices, has a good market for the straw, the weather was perfect for you, and you had no major breakdowns....well then that farmer is going to make money hand over fist.

However take any one of those factors, and toss a money wrench in, and the farmer can be in debt at the end of harvest.  Like new combines to harvest wheat are now $200,000-$400,000 dollars.  Kiss any profit good-bye if you have to invest in a new combine.

~Garnet

Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years

Answer 7

I seen alot of good answers to this question, but here is mine, I could make a little money on a wheat crop, since I have to plant a cover crop anyway, but even with the higher markets, you can only plan on making 30 to 50 dollars a acre, if you get good weather, the fert. costs and fuel cost have gone up so much, and the seed is out of this world, you wonder why we do this year after year..  

But to answer your question, about 40 dollars a acre...  on a fair crop..

Answer 8

I recently did a gross margin analysis for a wheat crop and came out with a gross margin of $800/ha. This does not take into account fixed costs and there is a great deal of variation in each individual farming operation

Answer 9

it depends on the largeness of the area on which they plant and if really wheat is  scarce in that certain area