Because this sounds so efficient I would love to agree, but getting it right is important. It is often a feed crisis that motivates a farmer to join Farmax^®. They were comfortable right up to the point of crisis. Almost without exception they are left with few options. Already in a feed deficit they have too many livestock, prices are low making a high cost to forced sales, supplements are expensive and responses to Nitrogen are low.

Indeed farming is more than ever about getting feeding right. You can not make errors in feeding and still maximise returns.  In the Farmax^® database there is a group of farmers who are in the top 20% for farm profitability and there is the group I’ve just mentioned. But there are no farmers in both these groups.

If asked “what could you have done 1 month ago?” there is normally a variety of options. Therefore the further forward we can look the more options we have and the more likely we are to be choosing the most profitable ones (rather than the last ones left us). But this requires some regularity and precision – and this along with the potential to loose profits by getting it wrong is the good argument for formal feed budgeting; you will probably make more money.

Are there tools that can help?

In mid 2007 Meat and Wool New Zealand will be launching an interesting project called Feedmaster. This will introduce four feed planning software products to sheep, beef and deer farmers.  These will greatly increase farmer’s awareness of feed management.

One of these products is developed by Farmax^® and is called Farmax^® Lite. To describe this product it would be helpful to have some common definitions for feed management. I see feed management in 3 different levels.

1.      Grazing rotation – This is about paddock level feed rationing. We must set a rotation that takes into account the intakes we will allow stock (given their target growth rates) and the need to clean up pastures.

2.      Feed budgeting – At the farm level we need to be sure that with the expected pasture growth rates we can adequately feed stock to achieve production targets. It is not possible to be infeasible at the whole farm level but feasible at the grazing rotation level.

3.      Feed planning – This combines the feed budget with its production outcomes. For example a low lamb schedule but high pasture levels may justify carrying some longer – but how many for how long and what are the risks if winter pasture growth is on the low side?

 
At the feed rationing level possibly the most intelligent product available (free from Meat and Wool NZ) is Q-Graze. While this is not a Farmax^® product it was developed by AgResearch using some parts of Stockpol^® and some completely new data. Farmers can use it to accurately predict stock performance given the feed quantity and quality offered and the length of time they want animals to stay in a paddock (It only works for finishing stock).

Farmax^® Lite is designed to work at the feed budgeting level. A farmer will already have chosen a livestock policy and will want to test its feasibility or how changes in pasture growth might affect the plan. Using Farmax^® Lite the farmer will outline the targets for the year such as stock numbers, liveweight gains, the lambing %, supplementary feeding and sales dates. Farmax^® Lite will calculate if the pasture growth and pasture cover that is expected will achieve this plan. It will show periods where cover is too low or too high. If it is not feasible the farmer can then look at the changes needed to make it feasible.

Before Farmax^® Pro (and its predecessor Stockpol^®) was invented achieving anything accurate at the feed planning level was very difficult. A consultant may have been able to look at a couple of options for you each year but then your consultancy budget was all used up. Today, Farmax^® enables you to look at most options at any time – a feat achieved by AgResearch and Farmax^® through massive investment in software development and consultant training.

In summary New Zealand farms should be an opportunity to provide cheap feed to valuable livestock. If you do not do this well you will end up in a crisis which will eventually mean cheap stock and expensive feed – you can’t survive long in that game. The cost of the feed and the value of the stock depend on your ability to consistently make good decisions. Indeed it is the quality of your decisions that largely determines this. It seems logical that formal feed budgeting must be an advantage.

Why does it have to involve computers?

Why all the computer technology? As a farmer once told me “We are outdoor people, we come home tired, we don’t want to stare at a computer” Without reservation I agree. Almost every software program I have purchased that promised to lift me to an even greater level of happiness has evaporated this dream within minutes of installation. But there are good reasons to persist - let me outline these:

• Computers can calculate things that would have taken you a year in a matter of seconds – but only if you have chosen very smart software that can exploit this potential.
   
  
• Computers can store things in a more retrievable way than any paper filing system  - but only if you learn how to use the computers filing system
  
  
• Computers allow other people to more easily contribute to your opportunities because it forces you to standardise the way you record information – But they do not yet do the basic monitoring for you!
   
  
• Computers have considerable upside opportunities – But only if you can incorporate them into your lifestyle so that you can seek out these opportunities.