Income arrives twice a year and costs arrive every week

The shape of the year

Inputs, labour and fuel are spent continuously. Revenue arrives in concentrated bursts at harvest or sale. An operation can be comfortably profitable across a year and still be unable to pay for something in the eleventh month.

A profit figure does not describe this at all. The number that matters is the cash position by month, and it has to be projected rather than reported, because by the time it is reported the shortfall has already happened.

Cost per crop, per plot, per cycle

Aggregated across an operation, costs tell you very little. Attributed to a crop and a plot, they answer the question worth asking: which of the things you grow is actually paying, and which is being carried by the others.

This requires attributing inputs and labour at the time they are applied, which is genuine extra work in the field. Doing it for one plot as a comparison is more realistic than attempting the whole operation, and usually settles the argument.

Input credit cuts both ways

Buying inputs on credit from a dealer bridges the gap, and the cost of it is rarely stated as an interest rate. It is embedded in a higher rate for the goods, which makes it invisible and usually expensive.

Worth asking a dealer what the cash price would be. The difference, annualised over the credit period, is the rate you are actually paying, and comparing it against a formal facility is often uncomfortable.