New appointment to roll out whole-farm benchmarking across UK

[llamedos]

Enabling more farmers to benchmark performance and improve cost management across whole farm businesses is behind the appointment of a new Farm Benchmarking Manager at AHDB.

Doreen Anderson will head up a team responsible for rolling out a new business management programme focusing on benchmarking and peer-to-peer learning across crop and livestock enterprises.

Doreen has a wealth of experience helping farmers benchmark their costs of production, having worked at AHDB since 2012 on various projects including dairy and beef benchmarking, as well as more recently Monitor Farms and Arable Business Groups.

She said: “This is an exciting time for me and the team as we are at the beginning of an interesting and challenging journey. AHDB has long been involved in benchmarking programmes at sector level but a whole-farm approach will prove more beneficial to the farmers and give a better picture of their farm as a business by looking at all their enterprises together.”

Her appointment is part of AHDB’s renewed drive to upskill farmers and growers by providing them with the tools and understanding to monitor performance relative to their peers and improve their business decision-making.

The team will cover the whole UK, with five regional officers working across beef, lamb, potatoes, cereals, oilseeds and later dairy.

Its primary focus is to help farmer and grower groups upload figures onto AHDB’s new benchmarking software, Farmbench, interpret the results and discuss ways of reducing costs of production. It will also be training consultants, advisers and vets to use Farmbench with their own discussion groups.

Doreen added: “The number of groups is always increasing and so our diaries are forever full. The advantage of working with discussion groups is we can help farmers who wouldn’t necessarily think of attending a benchmarking group get together to discuss their recent issues with their peers and help them make informed decisions based on the reports.

“Our ambition is to get far more of our levy payers involved and help them to start seeing real benefits to their businesses.”

The new programme supports AHDB’s strategic priority of inspiring farming and growing businesses to be more competitive and resilient.

Doreen, who is based in Scotland, can be contacted on [email protected] or 07901 116 454. Regional Benchmarking Officers are Holly Howsam for East Anglia and the East Midlands (07767 001543), David Pett for the South West (07813 454537), Meg Loynes for the West Midlands and Wales (07815 600240) and Emma Nankervis (07391 017763) for the South East. A post for the North is soon to be recruited. All can be emailed on [email protected]

 

[beefandsleep]

I have mixed feelings on bench marking. On the one hand it could very well help me improve my own business. On the other hand my ego tells me I am better than the average which gives me an advantage in the market so would prefer my inefficient competitors to stay that way. Another concern is how data collected will be used and who will have access to it. COP and open books in the dairy industry has been very divisive and will not end well in my opinion.

 

[Sonoftheheir]

Do other industries lay bare their cop's?

 

[Tarw Coch]

Do other industries lay bare their cop's?

Can you imagine AGCO, JD and CNH benchmarking!

 

[buffalo_soldier]

Rollocks to that, the less AHDB know, the better.

 

[Formatted]

Do other industries lay bare their cop's?

Yes

 

[gone up the hill]

So even more staff costs for no return!

Serious issue as above ref who will have access to this data...

I personally think ( nad have suggested to AQ ) that they need to run local farm groups like the dairy sector does, this would be a very good way of getting farmers looking at other systems/ breeds/ costings etc in an informal setting.

AHDB mantra is produce more for less. ( which basically is what the supermarkets want us to do )

 

[Half Pipe]

super markets would love that info

 

[Flasheart]

We've been involved with a combinable crops AHDB monitor group for 3 years. It has been very useful and interesting.

Makes you ask questions about your business, compares your costs to others. You have to read between the lines as there is always reasons why businesses perform differently.

Finally got some value for our levy money imho.

 

[llamedos]

So even more staff costs for no return!

Serious issue as above ref who will have access to this data...

I personally think ( nad have suggested to AQ ) that they need to run local farm groups like the dairy sector does, this would be a very good way of getting farmers looking at other systems/ breeds/ costings etc in an informal setting.

AHDB mantra is produce more for less. ( which basically is what the supermarkets want us to do )

Is this not what they do already on a smaller basis via their discussion groups and monitor farms, which are in turn fed into the annual stocktake report.

 

[colhonk]

Yet more parasites getting our money. no two farms are the same so how can they say ,look. farmer A makes more money than you, so you should do it his way.

 

[Tim W]

Good stuff I reckon
I use the AHDB stocktake Lamb and would certainly roll this out to other enterprises

I think the underlying thinking is;

1) Subs are going
2) Help!
3) Better get farmers to at least know their costs/weaknesses/strengths
4) Then they can at least do something about it

Very useful tool for many farmers who don't have these types of figures/analysis at their fingertips

 

[Brisel]

We've been involved with a combinable crops AHDB monitor group for 3 years. It has been very useful and interesting.

Makes you ask questions about your business, compares your costs to others. You have to read between the lines as there is always reasons why businesses perform differently.

Finally got some value for our levy money imho.

This!

I've benchmarked my farm for years though not with AHDB yet. The questions it raises are very useful to help drive improvement but you're only better/same/worse than others. P/L is the ultimate indicator as long as you're reinvesting enough too. Lots of folk running down soil organic matter, P and K indices so be careful of what you are comparing yourself against.

 

[caveman]

These industry parasites just keep evolving and reinventing theirselves like some sort of flu virus.
Never mind.
They will die out when they have consumed every available host.

 

[Flasheart]

This!

I've benchmarked my farm for years though not with AHDB yet. The questions it raises are very useful to help drive improvement but you're only better/same/worse than others. P/L is the ultimate indicator as long as you're reinvesting enough too. Lots of folk running down soil organic matter, P and K indices so be careful of what you are comparing yourself against.

Exactly what I meant by reading between the lines, but useful to us all the same.

I suspect some folks tell fibs and others have no idea what's really going on, but at least getting something for the levy money.

 

[horizontal]

There is a limit to how useful benchmarking is but it does have a role. In the arable sector it's value has been eroded by aggregating data that combines owner occupiers with tenants, and those who contract farm other people's land or who bring contractors in etc. What you get from benchmarking is the start of a farm business improvement process - not a solution. As for AHDB, why are they doing it when you can access all this sort of data already from www.farmbusinesssurvey.co.uk - a quality controlled set of data brought together by universities with some easy to use comps.

 

[gone up the hill]

Is this not what they do already on a smaller basis via their discussion groups and monitor farms, which are in turn fed into the annual stocktake report.

Stock take figures are basically what someone wants people to think, only way to get a true idea/ feel for what is going on is by actually getting on farm and asking hard questions of the farmer about his costings/ system etc.

 

[Cowabunga]

Not only do these collected figures get published for all to see but it is sold to our customers.

While many other industries do performance monitor their business, I don't know of any other that is daft enough to let their data be sold by their consultants to their customers, rivals and policy makers and enemies.

 

[caveman]

Didn't @Clive start a bench marking thing on here?

 

[Clive]

Didn't @Clive start a bench marking thing on here?

tried to on some basic arable inputs etc but not enough were interested to make the data meaningful or for us to continue to develop what could have been some useful management info I felt