AHDB Farm bench

farmerfred86

Member
BASIS
Location
Suffolk
I'm a little late to the party with this one but...

This seems like a data mining exercise to me?
Benchmarking is very simple and any self respecting business would already be doing it.
The AHDB are asking for alot of very personal data with this?

Can anyone explain or recommend AHDB farm bench?
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
I've done Cropbench and Farmbench for the last 3 years. I didn't see what was particularly personal about it. I only used the AHDB model was only because the national farming company I used to benchmark with stopped doing it in-house and out sourced it to AHDB.

Yes, the aggregated data seems to be given out to the media and anyone else who wants it! That is my only major concern.

I've found it quite useful and a good discussion topic amongst my local group. We're taking it in turns to host tours around our farms, starting with the person who grew his wheat the cheapest. He's a neighbour of mine whose place always looks immaculate.

Benchmarking is quite a contentious topic in TFF. Most understandably don't want their data seen by all & regard their business as their own. I enjoy the discussion and learning from those better at farming than me, though there are caveats e.g. how sustainable a system is if they are living off depreciation without reinvestment or not applying any P or K. The figures are just the start of the debate on understanding why you are different and whether that's better or worse, or indeed appropriate to worry about at all.

I'll leave you with this:

upload_2019-3-6_17-16-0.png

Discuss...
 
Last edited:

curlietailz

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Sedgefield
I’m a member and I’ve found it a really useful exercise.
I’ve streamlined all my cash flows so that the figures are compatible with farmvench and easier to pull together when the input it due.

I’ve found we spend way too much on machinery !!! ( love shiney new bits of kit too much !!!) But it’s brought it into focus how we compare with other similar farms in the area

But I’m quite laid back and open about stuff so I don’t see sharing my successes and cockups as a problem, whereas others may

One thing Farmbench doesn’t ask for is financial info, rents, borrowings and finance charges etc
 
Everyone is after your data these days. Started filling a form for AF today and binned it when it wanted to know far more than was necessary. SOYL is the same, Gatekeeper same.

Because it can be mined and the results of that sold.

It is the same with green light grower, and the same model facebook uses. You provide a free or very cheap service and your user-base then populates it with literally terabytes of data you otherwise would not have have. You then use sophisticated software to run through that data and flog the results to whoever wants it. Governments, NGOs, concerned citizens with a grudge, and so on. It is only legal because they are not technically infringing upon the data protection act as the stuff is not used directly. Some of them do warn you in the fine print about what goes on though.

A benchmarking exercise should restrict the information to the members and that is that. It does not take a genius to actually benchmark farms either- the majority of the farmers here who can generate a budget for an enterprise and then fill in the actual results would be more than able to fill in a form and compare it to other people's in a spreadsheet, you do not need to spend money on consultants- it is probably an exercise most of us did during college anyway, I know I did three full on financial and physical assessments of host farmers in my time there.
 

farmerfred86

Member
BASIS
Location
Suffolk
I've done Cropbench and Farmbench for the last 3 years. I didn't see what was particularly personal about it. I only used the AHDB model was only because the national farming company I used to benchmark with stopped doing it in-house and out sourced it to AHDB.

Yes, the aggregated data seems to be given out to the media and anyone else who wants it! That is my only major concern.

I've found it quite useful and a good discussion topic amongst my local group. We're taking it in turns to host tours around our farms, starting with the person who grew his wheat the cheapest. He's a neighbour of mine whose place always looks immaculate.

Benchmarking is quite a contentious topic in TFF. Most understandably don't want their data seen by all & regard their business as their own. I enjoy the discussion and learning from those better at farming than me, though there are caveats e.g. how sustainable a system is if they are living off depreciation without reinvestment or not applying any P or K. The figures are just the start of the debate on understanding why you are different and whether that's better or worse, or indeed appropriate to worry about at all.

I'll leave you with this:

View attachment 773852
Discuss...
It goes into detailed pricing on everything. Eg fungicide cost on each field. Diesel cost, haulage cost. What your seed cost for that field...
 

colhonk

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Darlington
detailed pricing on everything. Eg fungicide cost on each field. Diesel cost, haulage cost. What your seed cost for that field...

I`m just an old codger but I Know this info,all on my simple spreadsheet. Surely every one knows their costs these days?.
But I must say that `When I was young and daft,I worried about all this stuff, but now I`m old and have more sense,I don`t` does you no good in the end.
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
It goes into detailed pricing on everything. Eg fungicide cost on each field. Diesel cost, haulage cost. What your seed cost for that field...
The first thing I do when I get a price for seed is work out how much an acre it’s gone up by from last year and how much it’s going to be etc.... £76/acre for organic long term ley with clover this year :eek:
 

Goodbeef

Member
Got asked to take part in the ahdb benchbark the other day. Think it’s good to compare costs and benchmark but then they let slip that banks want the info now to use as part of their applications for loans etc. Will the arable sector end up like dairy with cost of production contracts?
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
I`m just an old codger but I Know this info,all on my simple spreadsheet. Surely every one knows their costs these days?.
But I must say that `When I was young and daft,I worried about all this stuff, but now I`m old and have more sense,I don`t` does you no good in the end.

You don't need to share anything to know your costs. That's just record keeping. The point is to compare your costs to those of others and understand why yours are higher or lower.

Some posters in here who don't know what benchmarking is.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Got asked to take part in the ahdb benchbark the other day. Think it’s good to compare costs and benchmark but then they let slip that banks want the info now to use as part of their applications for loans etc. Will the arable sector end up like dairy with cost of production contracts?

They want to see whether you're worth lending to. Farms use mostly standard accounting structures e.g. Gross margins. Seems odd when they will lend to less conventional businesses based on statutory accounts and cash flows cooked up for the application.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
The farmbench is probably most useful to people who are in a complete muddle and need shocking into realising how badly they are performing.
Some of the articles about what people have done since doing farmbench are pretty common sense stuff that you shouldn’t need telling.
That said I have been filling some of my data onto it and agree they do want a lot of detail (@farmerfred86 costs per field is not something I have come across, I’ve just don’t total herbicide,fungicide etc per crop). It was the stuff about bank loans I thought too far.
I used to be worried about information such as pesticides used was being sold but actually they must get all this data from further up the chain anyway, I really don’t think someone knowing I used ascra instead of aviator at T1 on ‘big field’ is of particular interest, but then perhaps I should be worrying more I don’t know.
 

kfpben

Member
Location
Mid Hampshire
I would like to start benchmarking but as the arable is carried out under a share farming agreement I’m yet to see a benchmarking set up that would work for us.

The livestock is easier but again my labour is split between the stock and other enterprises, as is that of our employee, and the tractor/telehandler.

I could probably cook up some estimated figures but I would think as soon as you start doing that the whole exercise gets sufficiently far from ‘reality’ that it becomes fairly worthless.
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
It kind of shocks me that apparently a lot of farmers don’t cost individual machines, labour, fuel use etc

How can you run a business without knowing these numbers in accurate and intimate detail ?

My numbers are so familar and constantly sctrutinsed I could tell you any of them and what makes them up from memory !

Surely this is big part of the job of any farm manager ?
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
It kind of shocks me that apparently a lot of farmers don’t cost individual machines, labour, fuel use etc

How can you run a business without knowing these numbers in accurate and intimate detail ?

My numbers are so familar and constantly sctrutinsed I could tell you any of them and what makes them up from memory !

Surely this is big part of the job of any farm manager ?
Exactly, I could reel off every cost off the top of my head, failing that it’s all on my phone anyway. I regularly play around with spreadsheets looking at different scenarios.
It’s very easy to work out who has a calculator and who doesn’t!
It is nice to see where you sit in the grand scheme and gives confidence that you are on the right path, it’s often shocking reading some of the various benchmarking and Anderson’s review stuff in the press at the average costs in the industry.
 
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quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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