How visible is your farms input and output cost as well as statistical information?

The well-known saying “if one cannot measure it one cannot manage it” applies to farmers as well. To understand a farm’s performance using various key performance indicators, requires information. My question to your today, is, do you have the information to measure?

I want to share some examples, of regular typical measurements that we must provide to put farm managers and farm owners in a position to manage:

• Tasks not performed on schedule
• Input cost versus budget
• Labour performance
• Input cost per orchard per season
• Disease / pest frequencies
• Orchard performance seasons comparison

There are a lot more of these.

There are three primary areas where measurements must take place:

1. Inputs: This include labour cost and hours, machine cost and hours, material cost and quantity
2. Statistical: This include rain fall, temperatures, wind, diseases identified, pests identified, tractor run speed, PTO speed, spay car nozzles used and more
3. Output: Harvest information including weight / quantity, quality / grade

The level of measurement can vary, but here are some examples of the levels:

• Per season
• Per field / orchard / flock / herd
• In extreme cases per animal

Once the correct level of information is recorded, reporting become less painful because the information can be reported using business intelligence, pivot tables or other reporting tools.

For many readers of this article, many of the above information might sound unreal, but by implementing the right business management system, these are all possible.

If the content of this article attracts you, please contact me on bkoekemoer@aritmos.com or +27 82 780 8830.