Benchmarking – what is it costing you to produce beef and lamb?

If you don’t know what it is costing you to produce 1KG of beef or lamb on your farm, how do you know if your business is making or losing money?  This is a question being posed to beef and sheep farmers at a series of farmwalks looking at benchmarking data for NorthernIreland farms.

The best way to answer this question is participate in the benchmarking programme, run by Greenmount Campus.  For beef and sheep farmers, benchmarking your farm will give a break down of your cost per cow for items such as grassland, vet costs, meal costs and machinery.  It will allow you to compare costs to similar farms and is totally anonymous.

A large crowd attended a recent benchmarking farmwalk at John and Jonathan Carson’s farm outside Downpatrick to see at first hand how monitoring costs and production can be used to increase farm profit.  The Carson’s farm has 90 suckler cows and 40 ewes on 330 acres (133 ha), which also includes a cereal enterprise for home produced feed.  The farm is in the top 5 percent suckler to beef benchmarked farms.

In 2006, the farm entered conversion to organic production and in 2009, all stock will be sold as fully organic. There has been a major focus on improving grassland by reseeding with new hybrid ryegrass and “stitching” in white clover and red clover to fix nitrogen in the soil.  

Despite the restrictions of organic farming, the Carson farm has made excellent progress in grassland management and utilisation.  For instance, cattle numbers are increasing, as are carcase weights.  A summary of how output has progressed is outlined below.

With steer weights increasing by an average 24KG over three years and the level of concentrate feeding decreasing by 9tonnes, it is proof that focussing on grass quality will increase liveweight gain and profit.

Maintaining quality grass takes a high level of management skill.  On the Carson farm, sward quality is maintained by regular topping of fields down to 4cm, calculating grazing days ahead, matching stock to grass supply, using grazing paddocks to reduce waste grass, closing paddocks and making bales when grass supply is too high.  Fields are soil sampled and limed if pH is below 6.

As clover is crucial on an organic farm to supply nitrogen for grass growth, keeping grass short allows clover to tiller out and establish properly.  It also means it will stay in the sward for a number of years. Clover is highly digestible, has a higher protein content than ryegrass and therefore increases liveweight gain.

A well managed clover sward (40 percent clover) can provide the equivalent amount of nitrogen per acre as four bags on 27percent CAN.  Even with lower fertiliser prices, reseeding part of the farm is a worth while exercise, as young swards are much more productive.

For instance, silage swards on the Carson farm yielded thirteen round bales/acre, cut in mid May.  The ground was grazed before closing off in late March for cutting.  Considering no fertiliser is applied, the growth potential from young grass over an eight/nine week period is evident by the grass yield.  The red clover content of the silage will also provide high protein feeding for cattle, therefore eliminating the need to buy in expensive straights.

The event showed the advantages of using benchmarking to review your production costs.  It highlighted where money could be saved and what action can be taken to cut costs.  It also showed how output can be increased from year to year, which can lead to improved farm profit.

Johnathan Carson (host farmer) addresses the crowd at the CAFRE Benchmarking event held on his farm. Also pictured is Kieran Mailey (CAFRE Advisor), Michael Doherty (CAFRE Advisor) and Paul McHenry (CAFRE Business Technologist)

Kieran Mailey (CAFRE Advisor) discusses grass/clover swards with James at the recent Benchmarking farm walk at the Carson farm

For more information on benchmarking, contact Paul McHenry at Greenmount on 028 9442 6922 or your local development advisor.