CropChoice$, the popular risk management decision-making tool has new information for the 2009 crop year. Agriculture Financial Services Corporation (AFSC) has provided current crop insurance options, including updated risk coverage levels and insurance premiums. In addition, the economics unit of Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development has updated the 2009 cropping alternatives, which are forecasted regional crop budgets that are part of the AgriProfit$ Business Analysis and Research program.
"CropChoice$ is a crop planning software tool from Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development that helps grain, oilseed, pulse and special crop producers make better crop planning decisions," says Jeff Millang, livestock economist with Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development, Olds. "It helps forecast revenues and margins for the crop enterprise, and calculates the probabilities of achieving those results. CropChoice$ helps producers make better management decisions about cropping enterprises because it identifies, measures and manages risk. It also helps producers evaluate risk management strategies such as changing the crop mix, buying crop insurance and negotiating land rental arrangements. Significantly, CropChoice$ measures the risk involved in the plan and evaluates the effects of potential risk management strategies." Traditional crop planning tools use only single estimates of yields and prices. CropChoice$ recognizes that future crop yields and prices cannot be known precisely. To reflect this, producers are required to enter yields and prices as three different values: worst possible, best possible and most likely. These varying inputs produce varying outputs, which in turn give a clearer and more accurate forecast than traditional linear budgets. CropChoice$ helps to forecast expected yields and prices that lead to overall gross margins and profitability expectations. The updated software can be downloaded from the Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development's website.