Cost per acre calculator

Pick your state and crop to start from a published university budget, line by line. Change any number to match your own farm — your numbers replace theirs.

University of Delaware Broccoli budget — 2023 — University of Delaware Cooperative Extension, 2023. Open the source. 2023 Delaware budget. Variable total shown includes harvest and packing at the expected yield. Printed total $4,814.22/acre. In today's prices this budget would run about $5,120–$5,308/acre (USDA farm-input price index, 2025 average to August 2026; farm wages brought up separately with USDA's farm wage rates).

Line items per acre
Fertilizer$220
Nitrogen
Phosphorous
Potassium
Boron
Lime and amendments$32
Lime (prorated over 3 years)
Sulfur
Seed and transplants$900
Transplants
Crop protection$674
Herbicide -Goal
Insecticide- Dipel
Insecticide-Radiant
Insecticide-Warrior II
Fungicide - chlorothalonil
Water and pumping$92
Fixed Irrigation Costs · fixed
Irrigation Operating Costs · fixed
Labor$2,531
Labor - Planting
Harvest and packing at expected yield
Fuel and machinery$153
Applying Fertilizer Broadcast · fixed
Applying Chemicals Ground · fixed
Tillage/Chisel · fixed
Disk & Harrowing · fixed
Transplanter Operation · fixed
Other inputs$86
Interest on Variable Costs
Land and overhead$125
Land Charge · fixed
Your totals
Variable cost / acre$4,444
Fixed cost / acre$371
Total cost / acre$4,814
Total for 1 acre$4,814

Sales / acre$4,950
Left after costs / acre$136
Breakeven price$8.75 per box

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.

Planning several crops? Use the crop profitability planner. Want profit against your state's real sales figures? Open the profit per acre calculator.

Pooled farmer benchmark: Broccoli in Delaware

Built from real yield records of Delaware farms that chose to share their data. A figure only appears once 5 or more farms have logged the same crop and season, so no single farm can be identified.

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