Dan Aberhart hosts Richelle Boyd, MNP's National Leader for Crop Services, and Dean Klippenstine, a senior partner in MNP's agriculture practice, for the first session of a three-part series on farm financial literacy. Richelle walks through five numbers every farm operation should track — gross margin, cost of production, cash flow, debt servicing, and working capital — in plain language, using her own farm at Kindersley, Saskatchewan as the working example. Dean adds the advisor's view from a career of sitting at kitchen tables with large grain and oilseed operations across the prairies. Producers walk away knowing what each number means, what good looks like, and which one to check first when something feels off.
A drought area of Saskatchewan just got two weeks of standing water.
Harvest is coming and margins are tight either way, but the numbers still
have to work. Most farm finance advice arrives as a binder nobody opens.
This conversation is five numbers, in plain language, from a CPA who goes
home to a working grain and lentil farm at night.
Richelle Boyd, MNP's National Leader for Crop Services, and Dean
Klippenstine, a senior partner in MNP's agriculture practice, walk through
what good looks like on a real operation and what to check first when
something feels off.
What's Inside
- Gross margin: whether the crop is producing enough room for the rest of
the farm
- Cost of production: finding your real break-even number per acre
- Cash flow: why a profitable year on paper doesn't mean the account is
ready
- Debt servicing: manageable debt versus debt that leaves no room for a
bad crop
- Working capital: the cushion between what you can turn into cash and
what's coming due
Resources Mentioned
MNP -- "The Numbers Every Farm Business Should Know" -- mnp.ca/en/insights/directory/the-numbers-every-farm-business-should-know
MNP Agriculture practice -- mnp.ca/en/industries/agriculture
Connect with Richelle Boyd
MNP -- mnp.ca/en/personnel/richelle-boyd
Connect with Dean Klippenstine
MNP Agriculture -- mnp.ca/en/industries/agriculture
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