Excel for small farms and growers

Q: How do I calculate yield per acre in Excel?

Divide the harvest by the acres it came from: =E2/B2. Enter part-acres as decimals (a quarter acre is 0.25). For beds, convert square feet to acres by dividing by 43,560.

Q: How do I calculate break-even price for a crop?

Add the crop's direct costs and its share of overhead, then divide by the units you actually sold: =(direct_costs+acres*overhead_per_acre)/units_sold. Using units sold rather than harvested covers your culls and leftovers.

Q: How do I calculate days to harvest in Excel?

Subtract the planting date from the harvest date, =D2-C2, or use =DAYS(D2,C2). To plan ahead, add days to a planting date (=C2+75) or whole months with =EDATE(C2,12).

Q: How do I track farmers market sales in Excel?

List each product with its price, how many you brought and how many you took home. Sold is brought minus left, sales is sold times price, and =SUMIF(category_range,"Veg",sales_range) totals a category.

For market gardeners, small farmers and homesteaders who sell what they grow and want to know which crops pay. Excel turns a season of records into yield and cost per acre, a break-even price for each crop, days from planting to harvest, the share of the harvest that never sold, and net return per acre. Every formula below runs on one season from a two-acre market farm you can edit.

Market gardeners and CSA growers
Small and beginning farmers
Homesteaders selling eggs and produce
Farmers market vendors
Farm managers and ag students

Sample data

Every result on this page comes from this sheet, calculated by the same engine the Cellwise app uses. Change a number and watch the formulas react.

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
1	Crop	Acres	Planted	First harvest	Harvested lb	Direct costs	Price per lb	Sold lb
2	Tomatoes	0.25	May 12, 2026	Jul 14, 2026	9800	9400	3.5	8350
3	Potatoes	0.5	Apr 20, 2026	Jul 28, 2026	11200	5200	1.5	10400
4	Garlic	0.2	Oct 24, 2025	Jul 8, 2026	1650	4100	12	1420
5	Winter squash	0.4	Jun 2, 2026	Sep 15, 2026	8600	2900	1.25	7300
6	Salad greens	0.1	Apr 6, 2026	May 11, 2026	2900	7800	8	2550
7	Onions	0.25	Apr 14, 2026	Aug 10, 2026	6200	3600	1.75	5600
8	Carrots	0.15	Apr 28, 2026	Jul 6, 2026	4100	3100	2.25	3650
9	Peppers	0.2	May 18, 2026	Jul 30, 2026	3300	3900	3	2900
10
11	Overhead per acre (land, insurance, equipment)	1800

What Excel does for farms and growers

Work out yield per acre

Yield per acre is the harvest divided by the area it came from. It is how you compare a quarter-acre of tomatoes with half an acre of potatoes, or this year with last year on the same bed.

Keep acres as decimals: a quarter acre is 0.25. If you think in beds, convert once (bed length times width in feet, divided by 43,560 square feet per acre) and the rest of the sheet stays in acres.

=E2/B2

Result: 39200

39,200 lb per acre of tomatoes: 9,800 lb harvested from 0.25 acres.

See direct cost per acre

Direct costs are the ones that belong to a crop: seed or transplants, fertilizer, row cover, hired labor hours, packaging. Divided by acres, they show which crops are expensive to grow before you look at what they sell for.

Salad greens look alarming here at $78,000 an acre, but they are cut and bagged by hand and sell for $8 a pound. Cost per acre is only half the story; the next jobs bring in the price.

=F2/B2

Result: 37600

$37,600 of direct cost per acre for tomatoes: $9,400 spent on a quarter acre.

Find your break-even price per pound

Break-even price is everything the crop cost, divided by what you sold. Add the crop's share of overhead (acres times overhead per acre, for land, insurance and equipment) to its direct costs, then divide by pounds sold.

Use pounds sold, not pounds harvested. Culls, split fruit and what goes home unsold all cost the same to grow, so they have to be paid for by the pounds that do sell.

=(F2+B2*B11)/H2

Result: 1.1796407186 shows as $1.18 with Currency format

$1.18 a pound is the break-even for tomatoes: $9,850 of cost over 8,350 lb sold. At $3.50 you are well clear of it.

Count days from planting to harvest

Excel stores dates as day numbers, so subtracting two dates gives the days between them, and DAYS does the same with the later date first. Keep these by crop and variety and you have your own days-to-maturity chart for your ground.

To plan next season, EDATE adds whole months to a date: =EDATE(C4,12) puts next fall's garlic planting on the same date a year later, and adding a number of days to a planting date gives the expected first harvest.

=DAYS(D4,C4)

Result: 257

257 days from planting garlic on October 24, 2025 to the first harvest on July 8, 2026. Salad greens took 35.

Measure shrink between harvest and sale

Shrink is the share of the harvest that never got sold: culls, spoilage, unsold market leftovers, what you gave away. Compare the total sold with the total harvested and subtract from 1.

Farm-wide shrink hides the crop-level story. Squash lost 15% here (curing losses and cracked fruit), potatoes about 7%.

=1-SUM(H2:H9)/SUM(E2:E9)

Result: 0.11685863874 shows as 11.7% with Percent format

11.7% of the season's 47,750 lb never sold: 42,170 lb went out the door.

Total the season's net return

SUMPRODUCT multiplies price by pounds sold for every crop and adds them, which gives gross sales in one cell. Subtract direct costs and overhead for every acre farmed.

This is a return to your own land, labor and management, not a wage. Divide it by the hours you worked if you want to know what you paid yourself.

=SUMPRODUCT(G2:G9,H2:H9)-SUM(F2:F9)-SUM(B2:B9)*B11

Result: 74412.5

$74,412.50 net on $118,102.50 of sales, after $40,000 of direct costs and $3,690 of overhead on 2.05 acres.

Find the crop that earns the most per acre

Land and bed space are what a small farm runs out of first, so rank crops by net per acre: sales minus direct costs, divided by acres. The array inside MAX and MATCH does that for every crop at once.

Salad greens win by a mile because they turn over quickly and sell high, even with the highest cost per acre. That is why many market farms give their best beds to quick, high-value crops.

=INDEX(A2:A9,MATCH(MAX((G2:G9*H2:H9-F2:F9)/B2:B9),(G2:G9*H2:H9-F2:F9)/B2:B9,0))

Result: Salad greens

Salad greens: $20,400 of sales minus $7,800 of costs on a tenth of an acre is $126,000 per acre, ahead of tomatoes at $79,300.

Practice: 8 exercises

Use the sample data above. Type a formula and press Check: it is graded by a real spreadsheet engine, the way Cellwise grades lessons.

1How many acres were planted in total?

Your formula for exercise 1

Show answer
=SUM(B2:B9) = 2.05. SUM adds every crop's area: 2.05 acres.
2What was the potato yield per acre (row 3)?

Your formula for exercise 2

Show answer
=E3/B3 = 22400. 11,200 lb from half an acre is 22,400 lb per acre.
3How many days did carrots (row 8) take from planting to first harvest?

Your formula for exercise 3

Show answer
=D8-C8 = 69. April 28 to July 6 is 69 days. DAYS(D8,C8) gives the same answer.
4What did garlic (row 4) bring in from sales?

Your formula for exercise 4

Show answer
=G4*H4 = 17040. 1,420 lb at $12 is $17,040.
5You want to plant garlic again on the same date next year. What date is 12 months after C4?

Your formula for exercise 5

Show answer
=EDATE(C4,12) = Oct 24, 2026. EDATE moves the date 12 months on: October 24, 2026.
6What are direct costs per acre across the whole farm?

Your formula for exercise 6

Show answer
=SUM(F2:F9)/SUM(B2:B9) = 19512.195122. $40,000 over 2.05 acres is about $19,512 per acre. Divide the totals, not the average of each crop's cost per acre.
7What is the break-even price per pound for winter squash (row 5), including overhead from B11?

Your formula for exercise 7

Show answer
=(F5+B5*B11)/H5 = 0.49589041096. ($2,900 + $720) / 7,300 lb is about $0.50 a pound, well under the $1.25 price.
8How many crops were planted in April 2026?

Your formula for exercise 8

Show answer
=COUNTIFS(C2:C9,">="&DATE(2026,4,1),C2:C9,"<"&DATE(2026,5,1)) = 4. Potatoes, salad greens, onions and carrots: 4. Using "before May 1" instead of "on or before April 30" also works if a date has a time attached.

Free templates for farms and growers

Guided project: Farmers market sales report

Turn what you brought and what you took home into units sold, sales by product and sell-through.

6 steps in the Cellwise app. Each step checks your formula in a real grid, with hints when you get stuck. Part of Cellwise Plus.

Open guided projects

Guides for these formulas

FAQ

How do I calculate yield per acre in Excel?

Divide the harvest by the acres it came from: =E2/B2. Enter part-acres as decimals (a quarter acre is 0.25). For beds, convert square feet to acres by dividing by 43,560.

How do I calculate break-even price for a crop?

Add the crop's direct costs and its share of overhead, then divide by the units you actually sold: =(direct_costs+acres*overhead_per_acre)/units_sold. Using units sold rather than harvested covers your culls and leftovers.

How do I calculate days to harvest in Excel?

Subtract the planting date from the harvest date, =D2-C2, or use =DAYS(D2,C2). To plan ahead, add days to a planting date (=C2+75) or whole months with =EDATE(C2,12).

How do I track farmers market sales in Excel?

List each product with its price, how many you brought and how many you took home. Sold is brought minus left, sales is sold times price, and =SUMIF(category_range,"Veg",sales_range) totals a category.

Excel for other fields

Updated November 2, 2026