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Ximena Puig and Alvaro Luzardo at their farm in Eketahuna where they are 50-50 sharemilkers.
Signing up to a benchmarking tool is not about competition, but about improving collectively, says Ximena Puig and Alvaro Luzardo who are 50-50 sharemilkers at a 164-hectare (effective) dairy farm in Eketāhuna in the Lower North Island.
When they moved to a North Wairarapa farm from Ashburton four years ago, the couple signed up to DairyBase, a free benchmarking tool developed by DairyNZ that helps dairy farmers understand farm systems and performance by comparing key performance indicators with other farms.
"We were very new here and wanted to learn where we were sitting compared to the rest of the region," Ximena says.
In June this year, the couple took over another farm across the road as equity partners and lower order sharemilkers. Combined, the farms have five full-time staff plus themselves.
Ximena says DairyBase had a key role to play in staffing decisions.
"In the first year, we had one full-time and one part-time relief person at the farm where we were 50-50 sharemilkers. After reviewing the numbers, we moved to two full-time staff, which made management easier," she says.
Alvaro and Ximena were named Hawke's Bay/Wairarapa Share Farmers of the Year in 2024. This year, they won the ASB Alumni of the Year award at the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards, with the judges praising what the couple, originally from Uruguay, had managed to achieve in the dairy industry since they arrived in New Zealand in 2015.
The couple says they like staying on top of their numbers and DairyBase helps them do that.
DairyNZ's DairyBase manager Jodie Goudswaard says DairyBase offers two types of benchmarking - the business's financial performance and the farm's physical aspects - and compares them to industry standards or targets.
"To get the most out of benchmarking, our farmers use the financial and the physical reports together," says Goudswaard.
Data is collected annually either through completed questionnaires or with the help of the DairyNZ Farm regional team.
"The collected data not only contributes to industry statistics and benchmarking but also helps DairyNZ to continue to respond to policy issues including water quality policies, greenhouse gas legislation, and to advocate on behalf of dairy farmers," Goudswaard says.
"It helps us build on industry good information and keep New Zealand dairy farmers at the forefront of the world dairy industry."
Sharemilkers Ximena Puig and Alvaro Luzardo say they would love to see more people sign up.
"The benchmark in our area is limited in terms of sharemilkers," Ximena says. "More data would improve comparisons."
It's hard to manage what you don't measure, Alvaro says.
"Information is power. The more information you have, the more power you have to make better decisions," he says.
"We expect fuel costs to spike this season. But when we compare ourselves to others, we know whether overall rising costs are because of our management or because of the circumstances," says Alvaro.
"People say, at the end of the season, I make money. But could things have been better? Could you have done more? With DairyBase, you know," he says.
Alvaro says the dairy sector is in a fortunate position to have a customised benchmarking tool.
"With DairyBase, we have a tool that not many other sectors have. As DairyBase users, we feed DairyNZ information that helps it develop tools and those tools in turn help us work better. We are paying our levy, and using this tool is a great way to get the most out of it. So, sign up and go for it," Alvaro says.
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