Vegetable cost per acre in New Jersey
3 published Rutgers Cooperative Extension — Farm Management budgets for New Jersey. Every number below is copied from the university's own document — open the source to check it.
Rutgers Table 34: Costs and Returns for Tomato (Fresh Market), Per Acre — 1996 · Rutgers Cooperative Extension — Farm Management
In today's prices: about $11,289–$11,862 per acre.
- Fertilizer$146
- Seed and transplants$450
- Crop protection$187
- Water and pumping$300
- Labor$1,295
- Fuel and machinery$53
- Other inputs$1,378
- Overhead$320
- Fixed and land$124
Printed total cost $4,252.54/acre including a 7% management fee of $258.39 (carried as a line below). Variable total $3,870.58 includes 10% interest on operating capital. 1996 dollars.
Rutgers Cooperative Extension rotational budget for conventional production in the Northeastern United States, 1996, by Robin G. Brumfield. A planning budget, not a farm survey. The figures are 1996 dollars — three decades old — so treat them as a floor and use the today's-price range. Open the source.
Rutgers Table 33: Costs and Returns for Sweet Corn (Mid to Late Season), Per Acre — 1996 · Rutgers Cooperative Extension — Farm Management
In today's prices: about $4,521–$4,792 per acre.
- Fertilizer$113
- Seed and transplants$90
- Crop protection$284
- Water and pumping$192
- Labor$335
- Fuel and machinery$44
- Other inputs$406
- Overhead$129
- Fixed and land$122
Printed total cost $1,715.07/acre including a 7% management fee of $101.08 (carried as a line below). Variable total $1,491.73 includes 10% interest on operating capital. 1996 dollars.
Rutgers Cooperative Extension rotational budget for conventional production in the Northeastern United States, 1996, by Robin G. Brumfield. A planning budget, not a farm survey. The figures are 1996 dollars — three decades old — so treat them as a floor and use the today's-price range. Open the source.
Rutgers Table 53: Costs and Returns for Bell Pepper, Per Acre — 1996 · Rutgers Cooperative Extension — Farm Management
In today's prices: about $11,195–$11,805 per acre.
- Fertilizer$67
- Seed and transplants$748
- Crop protection$156
- Water and pumping$300
- Labor$1,101
- Fuel and machinery$49
- Other inputs$1,415
- Overhead$288
- Fixed and land$124
Printed total cost $4,246.50/acre including a 7% management fee of $271.27 (carried as a line below). Variable total $3,851.66 includes 10% interest on operating capital. 1996 dollars.
Rutgers Cooperative Extension rotational budget for integrated crop management in the Northeastern United States, 1996, by Robin G. Brumfield. A planning budget, not a farm survey. The figures are 1996 dollars — three decades old — so treat them as a floor and use the today's-price range. Open the source.
$12,920 per acre
Crops counted: Bell Peppers, Squash. This is sales, not cost — compare it with the budgets above.
Source: USDA NASS Vegetables 2024 Summary (released February 2025), state tables vege_all_tables.csv.
| Crop | Acres | Yield (lb/acre) | Price ($/lb) | Sales ($/acre) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bell Peppers | 2,200 | 30,500 | $0.79 | $24,004 |
| Squash | 2,900 | 11,000 | $0.41 | $4,565 |
Source: USDA NASS Vegetables 2024 Summary, state-by-crop tables (area harvested, yield per acre, price per cwt), 2024. Fresh-market and processing sales combined, as USDA reports them; prices are what growers received.
University budgets are planning budgets: extension economists price a typical acre from grower panels and dealer quotes. They are not surveys of what farms actually spent. Your own invoices are always better.
Older budgets also show a range in today's prices, using the USDA index of prices farmers pay for supplies (2025 average to August 2026). That index leaves out farm wages, so each budget's labor lines are brought up separately using USDA's farm wage rates (newest annual figure: 2025).
We never fill a gap with another state's budget. If New Jersey has no budget for a crop, the tools show none.
Every figure is transcribed from a published land-grant enterprise budget for that state. These are planning budgets built from grower panels and dealer quotes, not surveys of what farms actually spent — your invoices override them everywhere they exist.
Want to change the numbers for your farm? Open the cost per acre calculator. Other states: North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Kansas, West Virginia, Kentucky, Colorado, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Nevada, Maryland, Delaware.