At the 2013 BCG Main Field Day at Watchupga, the Afterburner fighter pilots provided insight into effective project and team management. ‘Plan, brief, act and de-brief’ was the advice given.
When thought about, the annual cropping plan is a project. You create a farm plan, you engage your staff and brief them on the plan and you act it out by sowing, managing inputs and harvesting. Often, the debriefing stage is overlooked however, it is probably the most critical to advance the farm business and make improvements.
Informed strategic, tactical and operational decision making allows you to combat production and environmental risks. Â
Strategic decisions are those that influence the whole or a major part of the business. For example, land sales or purchases, the portion of livestock and crop rotation. Having a good understanding of the long-term effects of these changes is advisable.
There are a number of tools available to support farmers and advisors make decisions to enhance the farm business. One such tool is Farm4Prophet.
Farm4Prophet simulation modelling enables grain and livestock producers to assess the financial risk of making structural changes to their business.Â
Some examples of scenarios that can be run through the model including the financial change of increasing lentil production, land purchases or reducing livestock numbers.
In Figure 1, the 5,200ha Mallee farm has proposed to increase the area grown to lentils from 400 to 1900ha by decreasing wheat, barley and field peas.
The result is that the break-even point (the point where revenue covers the cost of production) moves from occurring five percent of the time to 25 percent.
This means that when lentils occupy 400ha of the farm, you are likely to have a profit 95 percent of the time. This decreases to 75 percent when the area grown to lentils increases to 1900ha.
Figure 1. Scenario: increasing area grown to lentils from 400 to 1900ha, decreasing wheat, barley and field peas.
The second scenario is the purchase of an extra 1000ha at $2,100/ha, with half of the area being good soil while the rest was poorer performing. Figure 2 shows that there is no change in the breakeven point.
Figure 2. Scenario: purchasing an additional 1000ha at $2100/ha where half is good soil and half poorer performing soil.
Livestock changes can also be run through Farm4Prophet as seen in Figure 3. In this scenario, livestock are being replaced in the system with oaten hay.
Removing livestock from the system results in the breakeven point increasing from five percent to 25 percent. Showing that livestock is still an important risk mitigation strategy.
Figure 3. Scenario: replacing 1700 ewes on 750ha to 750ha of oaten hay.
The results of these simulation will vary greatly depending on your farm business information and position. When using Farm 4 Prophet, the initial phase is to enter your farm financial details allowing the model to accurately assess the changed scenarios.
Depending on the situation of your business, planned changes, it is wise to ‘plan, brief, act and debrief’ to continually improve your decision making and farm business.
