Assalaamu alaykum. May Allaah Almighty reward you for your services with a great reward. I would like to know how I should pay the zakah for farmland that is rented to cultivate wheat for trading (as a business). Do I have to pay zakah after deducting all the expenses? What if the local people here do not want the harvested wheat? All can I give is its value in money. If yes, then how should I share that amount of money for an unkown amount of people? (How much should I give each family or person who is entitled to zakah?) Do I have to give the zakah straight away to the entitled people on the same day as the harvest? Could you give me an example of the whole proces as if to make me see it take place? May Allaah bless you and reward you with much good.

All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

You are obliged to pay zakah on the crop if it reaches the Nisaab (minimum amount liable for zakah), which is about 653 kg of wheat according to the author of Fiqh Az-Zakah. If the crop reaches the Nisaab and it was watered naturally without irrigation expenses, then the zakah is 10% of the crop. If you pay irrigation expenses, then the zakah is 5% of the crop. It is obligatory to pay the zakah without delay; Allah, The Exalted, says (what means): {…and give its due (zakah) on the day of its harvest…} [Quran 6: 141]

According to the majority of the scholars, the wages and expenses of cultivation are not deducted from the wealth liable for zakah, and that is the view adopted at Islamweb. As for paying the zakah in value instead of in kind, the majority of the scholars held that it is not allowable to pay the monetary value of the zakah. The Hanafis, on the other hand, held that it is permissible. Following the view of the majority of scholars is more prudent. Ibn Taymiyyah held that it is permissible to pay the monetary value of the zakah if it is more beneficial for the poor. In any case, you may follow the view of any scholar that you trust in this regard, though our view is that you pay the zakah in kind and then the poor dispose of it as they wish; they may eat it or sell it or do otherwise. 

For more benefit, please refer to fatwas 327868 and 13152.

You should know that you do not have to distribute the zakah among all the rightful recipients. Rather, you should distribute it among them according to the best interests. You may even give the zakah to one person only, or to more, according to what you perceive to be more beneficial.

Allah knows best.