Farm system design
Dairy farming is a diverse industry. There is hardly a uniform process amongst farms within districts, let alone across the country. Much of this diversity arises from geography and feed availability but there are also underlying differences in the way farmers choose to operate their businesses due to personal preferences.
In some farm businesses the people involved do not believe that they are getting a satisfactory return for their effort. For instance, the cash returns and asset growth from the farm business don’t balance with the hours and commitment that the owners put in. An unbalanced “work-life” ratio is known to negatively affect work satisfaction and motivation. It can increase the risk of injury on farm because people are over-tired or stressed and, if it remains unbalanced in the long term, can lead to turnover of people or reduced farm productivity.
In many cases the farm system itself may be the area of concern rather than the people. It requires a different set of skills to manage a low intensity, lightly stocked farm than it does a high production farm. The latter can still be run effectively, but it requires a greater level of sophistication and closer monitoring.
How do you know whether your choice of farming systems is the best for your business? Do you:
- Currently farm in a way that best suits your capabilities and resources?
- Believe the farm is being run to its potential?
- Feel that you have the farm work under control?
- Compromise productivity because you cannot resource tasks as well as you would like?
- Feel frustrated by the endless list of daily tasks?
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Success by taking on what is reasonably achievable
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Jack, Steve, Ron and Geoff decided to invest in a dairy farm together. They all had some connection with dairying but wanted this farm to be an interest for them without the onerous demands of being there every day. They bought a 400-acre dairy farm and put on a manager. The herd size soon grew from 300 to 700 cows with the addition of 400 acres of leased land. The partners were keen to try all the cutting-edge technologies and so began cropping intensely, feeding by-products, targeting high production per cow and even at times milking three times daily.
After four years, four farm managers and a high turnover of other staff, it became obvious that it was not that easy to accomplish all these processes effectively. The partners began to question the way they did things and started to think about simplifying the farming systems. Jack offered to oversee the management of the farm in a part-time role from a distance. He found a new farm manager who was happy to help develop and implement a simpler farming operation.
The change began by starting to detail all the procedures on the farm including milk harvesting procedures, feeding out, handling of all machinery, recording all the daily events and ticking off all the routine tasks. Jack was a stickler for detail and he made sure that everything that was done on the farm was accounted for. This included details of all the inputs and outputs of the farm and accurate tracking of costs. Occupational health and safety manuals were compiled and the time sheets were set out in readily documented forms. Wages were all paid electronically with details of hours, rates and leave allowances.
Then it was time to review the farming systems themselves. First, the lease on a wet piece of land expired and was not renewed because of the frustrations it caused to try to manage it well. The herd size was cut back to a more manageable level and the cropping program was downsized. Other simpler methods of pasture renovation were adopted and contractors were used.
The AI program was halted and replacements were purchased. This took a huge strain off the system. Calving was restricted to 12 weeks of the year and replacements were purchased to fit this pattern. Eventually a new dairy was built to increase the efficiency of milk harvesting and to overcome the frustrations of the old rotary dairy that was feeling its age. This allowed the herd size to increase to 900 cows which meant that the spring surplus was managed without the need to cut silage. Some hay was cut off the back of the farm for dry cows.
By year ten, Jack, Steve, Ron and Geoff had seen the farm travel an interesting road, from a simple lower-stocked farm to a farm with highly complicated feeding and milking three times daily, when the wheels nearly fell off, then back to a simple but intensive large dairy herd. Three of the staff had been with the farm for six or more years which was a great achievement and added stability and efficiency to the operation.
The lesson the partners had learnt was that it is very easy to complicate an efficient system by attempting to maximise efficiencies in areas such as per cow production, pasture and crop programs and reproduction. They believe that success came from taking on what was reasonably achievable and being sensible about the jobs that were required of staff.
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Ways to assess your farm system
Choosing the best farming system for your dairy business is a major and ongoing management task. It requires re-assessment based on changing input costs, milk prices, seasonal conditions and needs of the people involved. Many farmers include discussions with one or more farm consultants and other farmers to gather the ‘what if’ information they need.
A number of tools are available to help you to explore how your farming system is performing from a ‘people’ perspective.
‘Taking Stock’ or equivalent farm business analysis packages
‘Taking Stock’ is a Dairy Australia program for checking the financial and productive health of your farm. It now includes a ‘People’ component for assessing the productivity and effectiveness of people in your farm business.
Taking Stock (or equivalent) consultations are available from some state Departments of Agriculture, dairy companies and private consultants.
People Analysis
The People Analysis tool helps you to explore the efficiency (People Productivity and Systems Analysis) and the Roles and Responsibilities of the people on your farm, and to check the Working Conditions you offer. It will help you make decisions about work practices and recruitment for the farm.
The People Productivity sheet gives a snapshot of the productivity of the farm from the input of all the people working on it (including family members). You need to enter the hours per week and weeks per year of each person, and the market rate (or actual if higher) of their wages or salaries. The results show industry-agreed measures of:
- people costs per kg milk solids (or adjusted litre);
- people costs per cow;
- cows per full-time equivalent (FTE) (50 hour week); and
- kg milk solids/hour (or adjusted litre/hour).
An industry range is shown which indicates the range of performance seen in a sample of approximately 200 Australian dairy farms. If the people productivity results for your farm are inside the range this may indicate that people productivity is healthy; however, there are some factors that need to be considered such as investment in labour saving technology, per cow production, use of contractors and service providers, and stage of farm development. If the results are outside the range continue with the Systems Analysis and the Roles and Responsibilities sheets to explore why this may be so.
The Systems Analysis sheet allows you to check how the farm compares with industry target guides in four processes that require a significant amount of people input on the farm:
- milk harvesting;
- feed management and delivery;
- animal husbandry and young stock; and
- pasture production and cropping.
This analysis can help you consider the way things are done on your farm and the possible savings from redesigning jobs, increased efficiency through investments in technology, or changes in the farm strategy.
If the percentage of time spent on a particular area is greater than the industry target guides it may be worth considering the way the system is designed. For example, if milk harvesting takes up most of the available time it is an indication that you may need to invest in a more efficient milk harvesting plant. If the time spent on animal husbandry is more than the industry target guides it might be worthwhile reviewing the calving period, the heifer replacement program and/or the AI program.
The Roles and Responsibilities sheet shows the percentage of each person’s time spent working in each system area and helps you consider whether you have the right people doing the right things on your farm to maximise efficiency. It can be used to decide whether more staff are needed and what their roles should be and for revising the position descriptions of current staff.
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Use the Generator to begin creating position descriptions for people on your farm. |
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