Agriculture

The analysis may compare field history, crop selection, planting information, weather, irrigation, nutrient and pest-management practices, harvest records, and measured yields across fields or growing periods. These factors should be evaluated together rather than assuming that one condition explains a production difference. When the dispute centers on crop-production methodology or quantifying a particular crop loss, a specialist in crop production or crop-loss analysis may provide the more precise technical expertise.

Contemporaneous records can help document when practices changed and what conditions were recorded before a production problem became apparent. Field maps, planting and harvest records, input applications, livestock records, irrigation data, photographs, invoices, weather information, and production histories can be compared across locations and seasons. USDA describes agricultural production management as involving interconnected decisions about land, water, machinery, structures, inputs, labor, and management, reinforcing the need to evaluate farm evidence as a system rather than in isolation.

Useful materials may include farm and field records, crop histories, planting and harvest data, livestock-production records, field maps, soil and laboratory reports, seed and input documentation, fertilizer and pesticide applications, irrigation records, equipment-use logs, invoices, sales or delivery records, photographs and video, weather information, communications, and historical production data. Records showing activities over multiple seasons can be particularly useful when the parties disagree about whether a disputed result reflects a single event or longer-term agricultural conditions.