SCIENCE FOR THE COUNTRYSIDE // AGRICULTURAL ACCOUNTING

Accounting is a science that has a wide field of application and the agricultural sector is part of its scope. Through it, it is possible to capture the entire production process and the costs generated by such activities, reflected in financial terms. Reliable, accurate and timely information that is very useful at the time of decision making.

Agricultural accounting is framed in the context related to all activities in the field, i.e., it starts with the inputs, their use and transformation, as the case may be, and then obtains the results, feeding back through financial analysis, in search of new planning perspectives.
On the other hand, agricultural activity is a topic of great importance within the national economy, since it is a determining factor for obtaining foreign currency and at the same time generates sources of employment in the country, so agricultural accounting plays a determining role in it.

Within the primary activities we can mention two main activities: agriculture and livestock, the latter being in charge of livestock production. As is well known, every production unit must have financial resources to start its activities, since its complex and dynamic process will generate costs for: labor, machinery, work equipment, facilities and constructions, inputs, seeds, herbicides, fertilizers, insecticides, utilities, fuel and lubricants, among others, which are indispensable to reach a final product. For this reason, every activity in the process must be recorded under the parameters of agricultural accounting.

Every agricultural entity must be managed in an objective and systematic way, in order to make good use of all available resources, to achieve results that contribute to the development of the producer, increase his social responsibility (with his family and his human capital) and the commitment to be at the service of agriculture and / or breeding.

Every shareholder, owner or proprietor of a production unit, at the beginning of a new financial year, sets new goals. Goals that allow him to work comfortably, to have the free will to make his own decisions at the moment he considers it necessary and of course to cover all his needs, reaching high production levels in the different functions to be performed.

Adopting an accounting system, suitable to the needs of the company, allows to determine both the financial situation and the productivity and efficiency of the business, as well as to record all the transactions carried out by the company, and to know the evolution of the business through the comparison of the results of other fiscal years, classify costs and income, as well as to contribute to the formulation of new plans and budgets, necessary for future investments.

In conclusion, the agricultural sector should frame its process in accounting, regardless of the importance of its exploitation, since it will obtain a better understanding of the economic result and at the same time will allow it to have a better knowledge, to determine if it should continue with livestock, cultivation, diversify production, or lease the land. It can also be considered as a useful tool that explains the language of business related to the agricultural sector.