Initial situation
Economic and production-related data on production processes is an important basis for advisory and educational work in agriculture.
Users wanted and still want the contribution margin calculations to be made available digitally and to be able to customize them as required. For some years now, the BAB has been offering an online tool for calculating the contribution margins of various land use and livestock farming activities, with the scope of farm branches being continuously expanded.
Objective
The aim of this project is to make contribution margins and data bases for farm planning in Austria freely available on the Internet in digital form. To this end, contribution margin calculations for various branches of industry and production processes are programmed on the basis of an Internet-based application. On the basis of predefined settings, it is also possible to make company-specific adaptations. This project was launched in cooperation with the Bavarian State Institute for Agriculture (LfL).
The data on which the contribution margin calculations are based comes from a wide variety of sources, such as published statistics, market and price information reports or information from experts. Finally, the data basis and results of the newly developed database can also be used for the operational concept within the framework of the rural development program and in the context of research cooperation.
Status of the project
As part of the EIP project "Income Stabilization", the online application "IDB - Interactive Contribution Margin and Calculation Data" was further developed:
Extended functions have been available in the online application since 2022 (e.g. basic settings, quick entry, crop rotation contribution margin and short-term forecasts).
In 2023, all plant and animal processes available in IDB 1 were further developed (e.g. adaptation of price masks, changes in the calculation of machine costs) and published in IDB new (programming language "Angular 2"). In addition, new procedures (organic ewe husbandry, organic oil pumpkin) were programmed and released for use by the general public. In addition, preparatory work was carried out in the form of programming templates for further processes (e.g. organic laying hens, conventional and organic hemp, organic silage maize).
Work 2024
The preparatory work and programming of new procedures for cash crop production, vegetable production, fodder production, animal husbandry and permanent crops in the "Angular 2" web application will be continued.
In fall 2023, a discussion process also started on a possible expansion of the calculation of the CO2 footprint in the online application "IDB - Interactive contribution margins and calculation data". If, as part of this broad-based discussion process, it is decided to implement the calculation of the carbon footprint in the existing online application, this will require considerable human resources for the possible adaptation of all individual procedures as well as the evaluation tool.
The regular maintenance of the data bases (prices, yields, operating resources, etc.) to update the observation periods represents further work content and, due to the ongoing expansion of the online application, also increasingly represents a challenge. Any necessary further development of existing procedures or possibilities for simpler operation of the application and data entry are among the other important project contents in the coming year.
