Farm benchmarking is the process of comparing your farm against certain key performance indicators, to see how your farm measures up against similar farms in your region. KPI’s can include financial measures such as profit per hectare, operating return on assets and growth in equity and physical measures including stock efficiency and total supplements used. Benchmarking is done anonymously and provides valuable context to the performance of your own farm in a range of areas.
This area of farm data management is growing rapidly. A proactive approach to farm benchmarking can help you to identify trends, look for opportunities and strengthen weak spots. It’s a great way to step back from running the farm and assess your farm’s performance compared to others.
A benchmarking report can also be a helpful reference point in conversations with your accountant, bank manager or any consultant helping to improve the performance of your farm. Benchmarking is widely considered to be a great way to improve farming efficiency both on your own farm and industry-wide.
The key to successful benchmarking is being able to understand and analyse the data in your benchmarking report and take appropriate action.
We use Figured and DairyBase, which provide access to a huge database of other farms in New Zealand. The results are presented in an easy to read, visual report. We can guide you through the process of assessing your farm, and help you interpret and gain maximum value from the results.
