Thursday, 06 November 2014 14:31

Continue to make money in the tougher times

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SHEEP AND beef farmers may be doing OK at the moment, but what happens when the wind changes?

Farmers wanting to improve their long term wealth and wellbeing will have an opportunity to meet and learn from award-winning Hawkes Bay farmer Steve Wyn-Harris about how to make more money and continue to make money when times get tough again.

Wyn-Harris is travelling around Kerikeri, Whangarei, Dargaville, Te Kauwahta and Te Kuiti during November explaining how feed budgeting enabled him to survive the recent droughts and even to make what he considers a reasonable profit each year. This is the latest series of roadshows organised by HR Consultant Ant Lagan; it follows an inaugural series that featured Marlborough farmer Doug Avery.

After establishing the ‘Beyond Reasonable Drought’ project, Lagan says he recognised a core group of top farmers had successfully embraced technology, data collection, alternative pasture use and protection of the environment to build resilient businesses.

Working with Cash Manager Rural, Farmax, Ravensdown, Seedforce and Focus Genetics, and teamed up with progressive accounting firms, Lagan has developed a series of farming workshops. These ‘gently’ take not-so-progressive farmers into cyberspace where they get to ask questions they are afraid to ask about IT and data collection.

“We know IT is hard for older farmers and we want to help them overcome the stumbling blocks of technological innovation,” Lagan says.

Along with Steve Wyn-Harris’s presentation, the workshops will include Australian resilience specialist Dennis Hoihberg who will speak about strategies that work.

“A strong support and communication network is a key building block in developing a resilient farm business and maintaining a healthy mindset in rural communities,” Hoihberg explains.

Lagan says sheep and beef farmers may be ok for a while – with the wind at their backs. “But when that wind changes, what will the not-so-resilient amongst them do?” he asks.

Steve and Dennis’s message to farmers looking to improve their long-term wealth and wellbeing is, if we change our thinking and our behaviour we can change the outcomes.