FIELD OFFICE TECHNICAL GUIDE

Section I General Resource References

F.     Social Resource Information

• Tools and Printable Resources

• Other Useful Links

• contacts

The following documents require Microsoft Excel,  Adobe Acrobat, or Microsoft Word.

Tools and Printable Resources

Tools to Track contract Costs

Labor (XLS; 3,903 KB) and machinery (XLS; 38 KB) cost estimators.  Note: These files were last updated in 2004.

Tools to Evaluate Alternative Enterprises

Amortize Conservation Practice Costs (XLS; 47 KB) a simple table designed to facilitate manual calculations of the Time Value of money.

Net benefit cost calculator (XLS; 97 KB) an EASY TO USE spreadsheet to automate the amortization and discounting process.

NM Enterprise Budgets by County annual profit/loss analysis for typical farming operations in each New Mexico County (produced and maintained by the New Mexico Cooperative Extensive Service at New Mexico State University).

Drought Tools

Partial Budgeting for Drought (PDF; 33 KB) is a straight forward worksheet showing how to compare drought management strategies, using a cattle operation as an example.
Additional drought and risk management planning tools are available from the USDA's Risk Management Agency.

Other Economics Tools

Additional economic tools sorted by land use are available on the NRCS Economics website. If you need help refining these tools for use in New Mexico, contact the NRCS New Mexico State Office Economist.

Crop budgets for typical New Mexico enterprises are prepared by New Mexico State University.

The NRCS New Mexico Economics and Sociology Fact Sheet (DOC; 37 KB)  includes definitions and explanations to facilitate evaluation of practice impacts on social and economic variables. More detailed information is contained in the NM Economic Reference Materials (DOC; 130 KB).

Catalogue of products (PDF) available from the USDA - NRCS Social Sciences Institute (SSI).

Other Economics and Sociology Links

Census of Agriculture (prepared by National Agricultural Statistics Service [NASS]): most comprehensive data set on US agriculture.

USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service: wide variety of economics data, some available at the county level.

U.S. Census Bureau: source for original social and demographic data for the entire Country, as well as individual Counties, Zip Codes, or smaller areas (Tracts, Block Groups and Blocks). 2000 data is currently being released.

Department of Labor: data on a variety of employment cost issues.

NRCS Social Sciences Institute: jumping off-point for a wide variety of social and economic information.

NRCS Resource Economics and Social Sciences Division: NRCS policy and guidance on Economics and Social Sciences.

Contacts

USDA-NRCS New Mexico Technical Services Staff can provide assistance if you do not find what you need on this page. Please contact Marian Revitte (Cultural Resource Specialist) or Seth Fiedler (Economist) if you need additional assistance.

* This list of references was prepared for the USDA-NRCS Field Office Tech Guide.

Last Modified: 06/10/2008