Paul D. Mitchell, Professor of Agricultural and Applied Economics, UW-Madison
The 2020 Custom Rate Guide is published. This was joint work among people from USDA-NASS, DATCP and UW, with Brian Luck and I the specialist leads. The survey was conducted last fall, so costs may need to be adjusted for increases in fuel and labor costs that have already happened since then.
The 2020 Wisconsin Custom Rate Guide was compiled by the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), Wisconsin Field Office, in cooperation with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection, the University of Wisconsin-Extension, and the College of Agricultural & Life Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
This summary is the result of a mail and phone survey which collected rates paid by farmers for custom work performed in 2020. The figures are based on reports by custom operators and farmers who performed custom work
and/or rent out equipment. There were 494 reports compiled. Thank you to all survey participants who provided data for this publication! Your input made this report possible.
Most of the rates in this release include the cost of hiring a machine with fuel and operator, but exclude the cost of any materials. No attempt was made to distinguish between rates charged by custom operators who perform these operations as their main source of income and those who do custom work as a secondary source of income. This summary makes no effort to evaluate fairness of rates being charged.
