The harvest is good, but there is no free cash: seasonal cash flow and margin by crop

«We farm 320 hectares. Sunflower gave almost three tonnes per hectare — a harvest to be proud of. Then in November I open the bank account: 70,000 hryvnia of free cash for the whole farm. Where did it all go? Nowhere. It sat all year in the field, in the fuel and in the tractor».

This is the most common thing I hear from farm owners. The combine has done its work, the grain is in storage or already sold, the neighbours nod — a good season. And yet the money is not there. The card is empty, the land lease is due, the spring invoices for seed are already knocking. And one question keeps circling: «The harvest was good. Where is the money?»

The answer is both simple and uncomfortable. A harvest is not yet money. It is a product into which you poured a whole year and almost all of your working capital. Money appears not when you thresh the tonnes, but when you count the margin on each crop, see how much cash is frozen in the field until harvest, and decide when and at what price to sell. Below is how to count this in plain words — no academies, no invented figures.

Profit by crop, not «by the farm as a whole»

The main mistake is to see the farm as one big pot. You pour in the costs, sell something in autumn, and the difference looks like profit. In reality wheat, sunflower and corn live by completely different economics. Different yields, different price per tonne, different costs per hectare and different risk. Until you break the money down by crop, you are steering blind.

Profit by crop is counted simply: take the revenue per hectare, subtract the direct costs for that hectare, and you get the margin per hectare. Direct costs are what you spent on this crop specifically: seed, fertiliser, crop protection, fuel for every field operation, the land lease for that area, the operators' pay. The margin per hectare, multiplied by the crop's area, is that crop's contribution to your overall result. From that you still have to subtract the farm's shared costs: equipment depreciation, salaries, admin. But it all starts with the hectare.

When you can see the margin by crop, you finally have a language for making decisions. What to plant more of next year. What to drop. Where you actually earn, and where you are simply cycling money to feed the fertiliser suppliers.

Why «harvested means earned» is misleading

Tonnes in the bin are a pleasant sight, but they are not money in the account. Between «threshed» and «earned» stand three things the owner rarely holds in mind at once.

First, you already spent almost everything in spring. Seed, fertiliser, crop protection, fuel, the lease prepayment — that money left long before harvest. So in autumn you are not «earning from zero», you are recovering what you already put in. Revenue first covers what you froze over the season, and only the remainder is profit.

Second, the price floats. The very same tonne of sunflower in October and in March can differ by 15–25%. Add the exchange rate: if the price is tied to a currency, your profit in hryvnia changes every day the grain sits in storage. The harvest is fixed in tonnes, but not in money.

Third, part of the result is «stuck» in the machinery. The tractor and combine wear out every season. That is a real cost, just spread over time and not paid in a single transfer. Ignore it, and the margin looks larger than it is.

Let's count an example: margin by crop

Take a sample 300-hectare farm. The figures here are for illustration — plug in your own, but the logic stays the same. Look at the margin per hectare across three crops.

Here is what the table already tells you. Corn gives the highest revenue per hectare — and at a glance looks the most profitable. But its direct costs are the highest too (more fertiliser, drying), so its margin ends up below sunflower. Sunflower, with lower revenue, leaves more money on the hectare. Wheat has the most modest margin, but it is the simplest and cheapest to grow, with less risk.

Now multiply by area. Say 100 ha of each: wheat yields 1.65m UAH of margin, sunflower 2.64m, corn 2.1m. Together, 6.39m UAH. But this is still not profit. From that sum you must subtract equipment depreciation, admin salaries, logistics fuel, banking and other shared costs. That is why «margin from the field» and «money in your pocket» are two different numbers, and confusing them is expensive.

Money frozen for the season, and cash gaps

This is where the real answer to «why is there no money» hides. Farming is the business with the longest cash-freeze cycle in the world. You put in capital in spring and get it back in autumn. Between those two moments lies half a year in which your money sits in the ground and brings you nothing.

Count it on the same 300 hectares. Average direct costs are around 25,000 UAH/ha. That is 7.5m UAH you have to find and invest before the first coin of revenue appears. Seed and fertiliser are bought in winter and spring. Fuel burns during sowing, spraying, harvest. The land lease is often paid up front. And the sale comes only in autumn — sometimes later, if you hold the grain waiting for a better price.

This is the seasonal cash gap: costs in spring, money in autumn. And while you are in that pit, a good harvest in the field does nothing to make you richer today. You are rich on paper and empty in the account. That is exactly why farmers take loans for sowing en masse — not because they are poor, but because all the capital is already in the field.

«A good harvest does not save you from a cash gap. It just postpones it to November — and makes it scarier, because now you have also sunk money into storage».

What to do about it in practice: build a payment calendar for the whole season, month by month. When and how much you owe for seed, fertiliser, fuel, lease. When the revenue from each crop is expected. Then you see, well in advance, the months where money will run short, and you prepare a cushion or arrange deferral with suppliers — instead of fighting a fire on the last day.

Machinery and depreciation: the tractor that quietly eats profit

You bought a combine for, say, 4m UAH. On the day of purchase it feels like minus 4m in the till, and after that the owner often «forgets» about the machine until the next repair. In reality the combine will work for about ten years, meaning each season «eats» roughly 400,000 of its value. That is depreciation — a very real cost, just not a cash one: it does not leave the account in a single payment, so it is easy to miss.

Why this matters for margin by crop. If you do not include depreciation, every hectare looks more profitable than it is. And when the combine asks for a major overhaul or replacement a few years later, you suddenly «have no money» — when in truth you simply never set it aside each year. The right way is to spread equipment depreciation across crops in proportion to area or number of operations, and to see it in the cost per hectare.

The same goes for fuel and repairs. These are not «small expenses» but one of the biggest line items in crop farming. When fuel is counted as its own line and tied to field operations, you see which crop burns how much — and whether it is time to replace old machinery that guzzles diesel and constantly sits in the workshop.

Storage and timing: when you sell matters more than how much you grow

The harvest is in — and here the second, invisible half of the earning begins. Sell straight from the field off the wheels? The autumn price is usually the lowest, because everyone is selling. Hold until spring hoping for a higher price? Then the grain keeps your money frozen for several more months, plus you pay for storage, drying, the elevator — and you risk losses and a drop in quality.

Here is the paradox of agribusiness: growing determines your cost, but the moment and price of the sale determine your profit. Two identical tonnes of sunflower bring different money depending on whether you sold in October or in March, for cash or on deferral, in hryvnia or tied to the exchange rate. That decision is sometimes worth more than your entire season of agronomy.

So storage is not a «warehouse», it is a financial decision. Holding grain only makes sense when the expected price rise outweighs the cost of storage and the cost of the frozen money. To make that call consciously you need the numbers in front of you: how much a month of storage costs, how much money is sitting in the store, what your cash gap is right now. Otherwise «I'll hold» is decided on a feeling — and it often loses.

Subsidies, grants and taxes — don't leave them out of the math

Many farms receive support: per-hectare grants, compensation for part of the cost of equipment or seed, preferential programmes. This is real money, and it too has its own arrival schedule — often delayed by months. The mistake is either to ignore it entirely, or the opposite — to plan spending as if the grant were already in the account. In the payment calendar a subsidy belongs on its own line, and in the very month you genuinely expect the money, not when you filed the application.

The same applies to taxes and payroll contributions, autumn lease payments to shareholders, and settlements for land shares paid in grain. All of this is part of the seasonal cash movement. If it is not in the calendar, you will again be coping by firefighting.

What it sounds like in real life

The farmer says: «It was a good year, we brought in the harvest». Translated into the language of money: «I invested 7.5m in spring, right now my store is full, but there are 70,000 in the account, and in December I need to find money for the lease and next season's seed».

Or: «Sunflower carried us this year». What it really means: «The sunflower margin per hectare turned out to be twice the wheat, so part of the wheat area was simply cycling money to break even». Or: «I should have sold in autumn» — a late realisation that three months of storage ate the very price premium it was held for.

Once you learn to hear the concrete numbers behind these phrases, running the farm becomes far calmer. You stop relying on the «feel of the season» and start seeing where your money is actually born and where it disappears.

How to see this in Finmap

Finmap does not do the agronomy for you, but it shows the farm's economics so that you make decisions on numbers, not on a feeling.

• Income and direct costs by crop. Set up each crop as a direction (project) and see the revenue and direct costs for it specifically: seed, fertiliser, crop protection, fuel, lease.
• Margin by crop and direction. You see at once which hectare earns and which merely cycles money — and what is worth planting next year.
• Cash flow and a payment calendar for the season. You see the cash-gap months in advance: when seed and lease are due and when revenue and subsidies actually arrive.
• Frozen money and equipment. You see how much is tied up in the field and the store right now, while equipment depreciation lands in the cost base instead of being forgotten until a repair.

A few tips

• Count the margin per hectare for each crop separately, not «profit for the whole farm». This is the key number for deciding what to plant.
• Put fuel, equipment depreciation and the land lease into the cost per hectare, not just seed and fertiliser. Otherwise the margin is overstated.
• Build a payment calendar for the whole season — from sowing to sale. You will see the short-money months ahead of time.
• Decide «hold the grain» with numbers: does the expected price rise cover the cost of storage and of the frozen money.
• Put subsidies and grants into the calendar in the month you truly expect the money, not when you filed the claim.
• Keep the farm's cash separate from the owner's personal money — otherwise the cash gap will always be a surprise.

On a related note — how to plan cash flow in a seasonal business and how to control working capital and get through the season without loans.

«In the field there are no bad years — only uncounted ones. You see the harvest with your eyes; the money you see only in the numbers».

A full grain store is not yet profit. Profit appears when you know the margin of each crop, see how much money is frozen in the field and the machinery, and consciously choose when and at what price to sell. A few targeted decisions — shifting area toward the higher-margin crop, building a calendar for the season, selling in time — often bring more money than one more good year in the field.

Money Doesn't Disappear. You Just Don't See It.

Try Finmap free for 14 days and see the real economics of your farm — margin by crop, the money frozen in the field, and a payment calendar built for the season, with no manual sums in a notebook or spreadsheets.