What’s a ‘good price’?
In recent weeks, I’ve been having very similar conversations with many of my clients about what a reasonable price to accept for grain is. And it’s a question I’m sure many of you reading this are currently asking yourselves, especially when weighing up whether to sell Canola or hold it. Should we cash cereals […]
Looking to buy farm land in a booming land market? Make sure you can genuinely afford it!
Land values are booming in many parts of Australia, and whilst this is good for equity and your balance sheet it presents some challenges if you are looking to expand through purchasing more land. One of the obvious challenges is return on capital (ROC%) which we are commonly calculating as low as 5-7% as ‘add […]
Creating financial freedom when farming in partnership
By Cam Weeks I recently had two brothers (both in their mid-30s) who, between them, have good scale and good equity and, for the most part, get on quite well. The brothers are fortunate in that their parents had planned well for their retirement and were very proactive on the farm succession front. Thus, succession […]
Even though fatigued, you can’t afford to drop the ball….
With talk of slugs running rampant across the state of Victoria and high weed burdens off the back of the wet end to the 2022 season, it’s more important than ever to make sure you don’t fall into the trap of getting busy ‘just’ getting the crop in the ground. Leading to not making time […]
Mixed emotions across the board for Victorian croppers!
When taking stock of the 2022 season, it was a season that brought with it a roller coaster of emotions for many producers and brought with it a need for farmers to be nimble yet decisive to manage the season that was presented. Although no frost damage of significance was observed across most of the […]
It’s in your interest to be a great employer!
“Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people”. Steve Jobs. As a young person working for the Department of Agriculture in Western Australia, I remember taking a group of farmers for a tour of Erregulla Plains at Mingenew some time in the early to mid-1990s. Long-time […]
Leadership – Essential in the family business too!
How important is leadership to your business? Is your business’s excellent performance a function of leadership? Or is the opposite sadly the case? My experience consulting with farm businesses for many years is that leadership varies massively across businesses and family groups. Unfortunately, it is a lack of leadership that is often to blame as […]
Succession planning – Parents, you need to lead!
Parental leadership is, I believe, the key factor in all successful succession plans but is barely mentioned by succession experts or in the succession planning literature. That is the owners of the family business/assets, who I will refer to as ‘the parents’, need to lead! And without strong leadership, it is far more likely things […]
Planning key in uncertain times – how a farm advisor can help.
It’s hard to recall a time when farmers faced more volatility and uncertainty and taken more risks within their farming businesses. Reflecting on the season at hand, the risk that the natural environment brings stands out. The devastation of the current flooding and unseasonal weather across much of eastern Australia will be what springs to […]