It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day operation of a farm – there’s always plenty going on. But there’s a need to keep a hand on the steering wheel and make plans.
This is particularly the case when you want to develop or increase the size of your farm business, says Otago farmer Jeff Cleveland. “We sit down and think about what we want to do. We set goals and then make a plan for how we want to go about achieving them.”
The longer term planning typically happens during the winter, Jeff says, and involves the ownership group – himself and wife Di and his parents Ross and Mary. They also bring in a consultant as needed.
They’ve started using farm management software to record key aspects of the business, and this helps in three ways...
1. Get a clear view
Farm management software will give you a clear view on what really counts for your farm business by presenting your farm information in useful, easy-to-understand ways.
It will help you analyse what’s happening and spot trends so you can assess the farm’s current performance. “All the farm information is in one place,” notes Jeff. “You can see where you can extract more from the operation.”
In the Clevelands’ case, they’ve compared the two maternal breeds of sheep they were using. “We want to produce an 18.5 to 19kg lamb, and one breed seemed to be taking longer to achieve target weight.” They used the software to compare lamb weaning weights and growth rates through the season. It confirmed what Jeff had suspected: “One breed was holding us back”. Eighteen months ago they shifted to using only the other breed.
“A lot of things on the farm, you have an inkling yourself in your own mind, but with this software you use facts to confirm your thinking ‒ or show you something different. I’m targeting it to help me make decisions.”
There are always some things you can’t get enough of a handle on, and you need further information. A planning tool makes it easy to create a data capture plan including activities like weighing that will get you the figures you need.
You also get a tool that helps you analyse the gross margin for different scenarios – like comparing the profit from selling progeny store or finished.
2. Set the direction and get moving
When you’ve defined what you want to achieve and set some goals and targets, the software will help you make plans to take you there. There’s a saying, "Failing to plan is planning to fail."
You get tools that you or your manager can use for doing feed budgeting, organising stock rotations and creating an animal health schedule – to help you make it happen on the farm.
The software enables you to monitor progress towards your targets so you can keep things on track. For example, if you want to lift reproductive performance you might set a mating liveweight target and then track the breeding females’ progress towards that from weaning.
3. Day-to-day planning
Farm management software also helps you run the day-to-day farm operations. Every farm task should be thought-through a bit beforehand, says Jeff, “rather than get halfway through and start changing how you’re doing it.” They’re currently a family farming operation, but he envisages employing staff in future.
There are tools in the software that help you schedule tasks for yourself and your staff. You put them into a calendar and assign them to a person. It helps the team think ahead of time what else needs to be organised – like if there’s enough drench or whether some more wire and posts need to be ordered.
With a mobile app, each staff member can view their assigned tasks. A colour-coding system will show you when a task has been done.
At the end of the season you’ll have a wealth of information available to review, using the software’s overview and analysis tools. As your farm history builds in the database, you can do year-on-year comparisons, as well as comparing against benchmarks.
Want to find out more about the software tool the Clevelands have used to steer their farm in the right direction?
