Characteristics
and Production Costs of U.S. Rice Farms
Janet Livezey and Linda Foreman
Statistical Bulletin No. (SB974-7) 34 pp, March 2004
The average cost of producing a hundred pounds (cwt) of rice was
$6.00 for U.S. producers surveyed in 2000, ranging from about $2
per cwt to more than $10. Producers in the lowest quartile of production
costs averaged $3.99 per cwt compared with $8.94 for producers in
the highest quartile. Regional differences in production practices,
farm characteristics, and growing conditions were major influences
on production costs among rice producers. More than half of the
low-cost farms were located in the Arkansas Non-Delta, the largest
rice region. Most high-cost farms were in California and the Gulf
Coast regions. Three-quarters of rice production was concentrated
on large and very large farms, categories that included nearly two-thirds
of all rice farms, but the link between size of enterprise and production
costs for rice is weaker than for other commodities. At the marketing-year
average price of $5.61 per hundredweight, 78 percent of rice farms
were able to cover operating costs and 43 percent covered both their
operating and ownership costs of rice production in 2000. After
accounting for Government payments, nearly all rice farms (97 percent)
were able to cover operating costs in 2000, and about 84 percent
were able to cover both operating and ownership costs.
Keywords: rice production, average cost, production practices,
farm characteristics, ERS, USDA
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