Producers of agricultural commodities are exposed to numerous uncertainties regarding output and input prices, crop yields, yield responses to inputs and the like. In agricultural risk analyses, relevant developments or events are usually measured in economic terms resulting in a positive or negative impact on farm incomes. We develop a novel data set: the ‘Index-based Costs of Agricultural Production’ (INCAP) that can be used to quantify risk-related statistics associated with standardised production systems. Activity-specific gross margins and their stochasticity can be measured at an arbitrary level of aggregation. The aims of this article are to present the structure and scope of INCAP and to demonstrate its potential use in agribusiness, farm extension programmes and policy analyses. Wheat production in Austria is presented as an example.