"Improving Our Lot" - Planned Holistic Grazing, for starters..

[hendrebc]

I can’t remember or find it if it was here or roys thread that we touched on benchmarking.
Does anyone do it, is it worth doing it? I’m sure it got mentioned that it’s not about comparing prices to each other but more about profit per acre
Admitidly im only hoby farming but there’s a group meeting coming up to discus benchmarking which just out of interest I may go to.

I'm half way through listening to this. There is a lot of talk about benchmarking and key performance indicators and comparing individual animal performance to performance per hectare etc. Can't tell you much else though I haven't listened to all of it yet.
http://thepasturepod.libsyn.com/episode-6-andre-van-barneveld

 

[onesiedale]

I can’t remember or find it if it was here or roys thread that we touched on benchmarking.
Does anyone do it, is it worth doing it? I’m sure it got mentioned that it’s not about comparing prices to each other but more about profit per acre
Admitidly im only hoby farming but there’s a group meeting coming up to discus benchmarking which just out of interest I may go to.

We benchmark within our discussion group. Whilst it throws up figures that we could all pick holes in, the best comes out of it when you start to get year on year figures for your business.
The numbers are good for doing forward budgets,, (bank manager loves these ,) then you can build a picture of how the numbers relate to your business and which areas can be challenged in reducing CoP

 

[Samcowman]

I can’t remember or find it if it was here or roys thread that we touched on benchmarking.
Does anyone do it, is it worth doing it? I’m sure it got mentioned that it’s not about comparing prices to each other but more about profit per acre
Admitidly im only hoby farming but there’s a group meeting coming up to discus benchmarking which just out of interest I may go to.

Definitely do it but as @onesiedale said the most important person to benchmark against is yourself. I started off simple and have ended up quite complicated but very interesting. Pm me if you like.
Being part of a wider group will give you good ideas of what can work and what can be done better as well

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Well, you can thank @Demolition Man to a degree

He came to find out about "low cost farming" and "holistic management" - but he'd sold his cattle and gone on holiday to the other side of the globe, because "fodder's bloody expensive, I can't see much of a margin in them this year, so why be a busy fool" or words to that effect.

I thought that was pretty good, TBH

I can’t remember or find it if it was here or roys thread that we touched on benchmarking.
Does anyone do it, is it worth doing it? I’m sure it got mentioned that it’s not about comparing prices to each other but more about profit per acre
Admitidly im only hoby farming but there’s a group meeting coming up to discus benchmarking which just out of interest I may go to.

Yeah, I think it pays to see how you compare to others, especially in your local area.
Quite interesting just to see how others are going about it, even just comparing EFS/ha can be interesting enough.

I'm off to do just that on Wednesday morning, with my wife and a TFF member who's AWOL partly discussion group with Iain Mitchell-Innes, a pasture walk, and a benchmarking operation.

I'll see if we need to convert to dairy to make more money, eh?

 

[onesiedale]

I'll see if we need to convert to dairy to make more money, eh?

Go on . . . just milk it!

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Go on . . . just milk it!

It gets more difficult to divide costs when you have a few different things going on.
Oddly my output is quite comparable to some other farms but we blow the doors off a few in terms of profit/ha, usually around the $720/ha mark after everything's paid - including most of the household expenses.

It's a bit over $100/hr, which I can live with.

That's where benchmarking is beneficial, especially if you can discuss how those figures came to be.
Anyone can focus on strengths but the value is to identify (and ponder) what our weaknesses are.
Often 20 pairs of eyes see what one pair cannot.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I'm half way through listening to this. There is a lot of talk about benchmarking and key performance indicators and comparing individual animal performance to performance per hectare etc. Can't tell you much else though I haven't listened to all of it yet.
http://thepasturepod.libsyn.com/episode-6-andre-van-barneveld

It gets more difficult to divide costs when you have a few different things going on.
Oddly my output is quite comparable to some other farms but we blow the doors off a few in terms of profit/ha, usually around the $720/ha mark after everything's paid - including most of the household expenses.

It's a bit over $100/hr, which I can live with.

That's where benchmarking is beneficial, especially if you can discuss how those figures came to be.
Anyone can focus on strengths but the value is to identify (and ponder) what our weaknesses are.
Often 20 pairs of eyes see what one pair cannot.

It's a useful idea, we should all critically analyse our operations and benchmarking can help in this. If it all gets a bit "mine's better than yours" then you could steer the discussion towards sustainability and income per hour spent

 

[Kiwi Pete]

It's a useful idea, we should all critically analyse our operations and benchmarking can help in this. If it all gets a bit "mine's better than yours" then you could steer the discussion towards sustainability and income per hour spent

It depends which way "you lean"

I'm a self-confessed envirommentalist, so I really don't care if it has it's drawbacks in other aspects of my business - if it makes me a lesser farmer I guess I can live with it... because it may make one of the boys decide it's a worthwhile pursuit after all.

As for "mine's better than yours/ I am the greatest farmer" I readily accept my stock will be better on someone else's place at certain times, so I send them away and don't look back.
Likewise, at other times I can do a better job than someone else, so I'll graze stock for them and let their place regenerate - that seems to work alright both with my own values and others.

(As long as it isn't us working for them too much: they are the tools, I am their manager/predator - I try not to let the tail wag the dog if possible).

 

[Samcowman]

@Kiwi Pete i was at a meeting yesterday looking at outwintering and the guy leading the meeting was adamant fodder Beet can’t be direct drilled. There’s more beet grown over in NZ is it direct drilled or is it as it was being grown here. Plough, power Harrow, beet and then plough after beet.

 

[Henarar]

income per hour spent

I don't have to worry about that as I pay myself on salary

 

[Kiwi Pete]

@Kiwi Pete i was at a meeting yesterday looking at outwintering and the guy leading the meeting was adamant fodder Beet can’t be direct drilled. There’s more beet grown over in NZ is it direct drilled or is it as it was being grown here. Plough, power Harrow, beet and then plough after beet.

Well, my mate grew 3 beet crops last year - one was precision planted with the big coated seeds and the other direct drilled with a Duncan Renovator. The other one was broadcast with my airseeder rig and rolled down, on ex-rape ground.
The PP crop went 24 ton/ha and the DD crop 19 ton - but looked totally different to the eye, the PP was better soil and far more even, but smaller bulbs than the DD which had bulbs double the size and more gaps - it was a bàstard of a summer though, even brassica crops had about 3 different chits over 3 months.
So I wouldn't say "it doesn't work" because in terms of $/TDM it worked out cheaper to get the DD contractor in.
It worked out cheaper still to broadcast and roll, as "my" crop went 19 ton as well, but mates rates...

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I don't have to worry about that as I pay myself on salary

Same here.

 

[graham99]

Well, you can thank @Demolition Man to a degree

He came to find out about "low cost farming" and "holistic management" - but he'd sold his cattle and gone on holiday to the other side of the globe, because "fodder's bloody expensive, I can't see much of a margin in them this year, so why be a busy fool" or words to that effect.

I thought that was pretty good, TBH

Yeah, I think it pays to see how you compare to others, especially in your local area.
Quite interesting just to see how others are going about it, even just comparing EFS/ha can be interesting enough.

I'm off to do just that on Wednesday morning, with my wife and a TFF member who's AWOL partly discussion group with Iain Mitchell-Innes, a pasture walk, and a benchmarking operation.

I'll see if we need to convert to dairy to make more money, eh?

i don't know what efs is ,but i work on profit per ha.
just seen a earlyier post ,an you do work on profit per ha

 

[hendrebc]

@Kiwi Pete i was at a meeting yesterday looking at outwintering and the guy leading the meeting was adamant fodder Beet can’t be direct drilled. There’s more beet grown over in NZ is it direct drilled or is it as it was being grown here. Plough, power Harrow, beet and then plough after beet.

Well, my mate grew 3 beet crops last year - one was precision planted with the big coated seeds and the other direct drilled with a Duncan Renovator. The other one was broadcast with my airseeder rig and rolled down, on ex-rape ground.
The PP crop went 24 ton/ha and the DD crop 19 ton - but looked totally different to the eye, the PP was better soil and far more even, but smaller bulbs than the DD which had bulbs double the size and more gaps - it was a bàstard of a summer though, even brassica crops had about 3 different chits over 3 months.
So I wouldn't say "it doesn't work" because in terms of $/TDM it worked out cheaper to get the DD contractor in.
It worked out cheaper still to broadcast and roll, as "my" crop went 19 ton as well, but mates rates...

@scholland did some direct drilled fodder beet and it looks great

 

[Kiwi Pete]

i don't know what efs is ,but i work on profit per ha.

Effective Farm Surplus.
Which is a fancy way of saying profit, really, however it depends if you are paying down capital or interest only, or rent etc.
Another one that's useful is EBITDA - your net earnings before interest, taxes, depereciation, amortization - because it takes the financing out of the equation it gives a better "apples with apples" comparison.
Many farms are only making money because there's no debt, and if they had debt it would cripple them, aka a "cash vortex" where there is no operating cash, it's "all to the bank". Others are largely living on depreciation, ie if they had to replace their gear then they couldn't.

That's part of the reason for having old, cheap, sh!t - and not using it much.

 

[graham99]

Oh, for sure - if you have entire males on the property.
That's not something that's completely necessary though, they can be bought to do the job and sold again.
Nobody says we have to keep them on our property, or run several mobs of lambs at different weight ranges etc - so it isn't a "need" but a want, or a choice

Some needs we create through the choices we make, but we're often more emancipated than we realise

Likewise "we can't do that here" is always a great excuse, often overgrazing and overstocking are merely oversegregation because we are looking at the stock and not the landscape. Some of the marginal reactions from brittle environments make sense in non- or less brittle ones.

one of the old timers that showed me a lot of tips, used to double plow in mid cantabury .
mainly because he din't have the sprayer's of today and chem was dear .even back then he was laughed at .
but he made money .
he was the first farmer i worked for who did it his way .as much as second gen would let him .
his father showed me why you don't need miosture meter's ,the combine will tell you its time to go home.
he the same man who would bite the gain and be with in .5 % of the moisture meter,which was dragged out to show the noob .
and after seeing vids on grain fires ,he must have had faith in his abilty

 

[graham99]

View attachment 766112
How about the next one round?

the florence piont look out beach.
don't know the name .went there a few years back an could beleave it ,with the bush right down to the beach.
and papatowai is were i want to live .but it is pricey

 

[graham99]

Effective Farm Surplus.
Which is a fancy way of saying profit, really, however it depends if you are paying down capital or interest only, or rent etc.
Another one that's useful is EBITDA - your net earnings before interest, taxes, depereciation, amortization - because it takes the financing out of the equation it gives a better "apples with apples" comparison.
Many farms are only making money because there's no debt, and if they had debt it would cripple them, aka a "cash vortex" where there is no operating cash, it's "all to the bank". Others are largely living on depreciation, ie if they had to replace their gear then they couldn't.

That's part of the reason for having old, cheap, sh!t - and not using it much.

if it works it's not sh!t .
and it stops you using it when you don't need to

 

[graham99]

Effective Farm Surplus.
Which is a fancy way of saying profit, really, however it depends if you are paying down capital or interest only, or rent etc.
Another one that's useful is EBITDA - your net earnings before interest, taxes, depereciation, amortization - because it takes the financing out of the equation it gives a better "apples with apples" comparison.
Many farms are only making money because there's no debt, and if they had debt it would cripple them, aka a "cash vortex" where there is no operating cash, it's "all to the bank". Others are largely living on depreciation, ie if they had to replace their gear then they couldn't.

That's part of the reason for having old, cheap, sh!t - and not using it much.

it's not just farmer's living like that.
if i had to start paying rent tomrrow , i would have to get a job

 

[Kiwi Pete]

one of the old timers that showed me a lot of tips, used to double plow in mid cantabury .
mainly because he din't have the sprayer's of today and chem was dear .even back then he was laughed at .
but he made money .
he was the first farmer i worked for who did it his way .as much as second gen would let him .
his father showed me why you don't need miosture meter's ,the combine will tell you its time to go home.
he the same man who would bite the gain and be with in .5 % of the moisture meter,which was dragged out to show the noob .
and after seeing vids on grain fires ,he must have had faith in his abilty

You have to have some faith in the processes, otherwise they line up to process your profits by selling you fancy gadgets.

Although I have learnt quite a bit from a refractometer it is still just an eye-calibrator IMO, although again it backs up that you aren't too far wide of the mark the stock are the experts, just like you can't fool an old combine the grain is fit.

I remember a chap telling you off for "old outdated advice" about multicut silage a while back, and soon after was grizzling about the drought and lack of silage going forward.
I think about 3 weeks after telling you off, to be precise...
Also interesting is what well-fed stock decide to graze first - here it's tumbleweeds, docks, cali thistle flowers, timothy and cocksfoot heads, then the "nice grass and clover" that someone planted - but only after the weeds have been eaten.