Do you have a benchmark for production? How do your management practices sit with best practice or against similar operations? These are the types of questions I'm often asked by producers. And these are questions not just being asked by my clients, I often get them in general discussions at field days, the saleyards, pretty much anywhere where a few producers might be chatting.
So how do you compare against others? Does it even matter? Well I guess what matters is if you are operating a financial and environmentally sustainable enterprise. If you are doing that I reckon it doesn't really matter what everyone else is doing!
Having said that, for most producers I know, there is always scope to improve their management or their production systems in some way. Benchmarks can be a really useful tool to make those improvements.
When I mentioned this to someone this week, their response was how are benchmarks useful? I reckon one of the best responses is that to create a benchmark, you have to make the time to consider what is being measured and actually respond with some real data.
The very fact that real data is required actually causes producers to start considering what is actually happening in their programs. It is very easy to overlook parts of the enterprise - the little things if you like, that on their own don't seem that important. But when you accumulate a few of those things, they can have a massive effect on the overall business.
I reckon comparing your performance against a benchmark gives you a chance to objectively measure where your program is heading. The way this needs to be done however is not to think that a once only assessment will mean very much.
The first time you compare yourself to a benchmark you are really only comparing yourself to a single point in time. You might be on par with that point, you could be above it or below it. Whichever way you compare, the first time is really just the starting point.
To get some value, and make useful decisions, you need to do some comparisons over a couple of years. This will show if there is a trend up or down.
Having said that, if there are some things that you identify as being well below the benchmark, its a chance to get in and try address those issues as quickly as you can!
The other question many producers ask sits around what do you benchmark yourself against? There are plenty of people throwing around benchmarks and production levels. How current are those levels, how realistic are they? These are all things to consider.
Personally I am a little unsure of what the realistic measures are for the producers I work with. And there seems to be a fair bit of variation in what people are doing. So this July I decided to conduct a benchmarking survey of RaynerAg clients and producers who use RaynerAg for advice. I have to say, its not a short survey! But if I'm going to collect data that I can use to help producers and have some meaningful benchmarks, well it has to cover a few things.
So far I have had some useful responses. I am getting much better picture of some general practices that we can all improve and a few useful trends on fertility that might provide some easy but effective strategies for breeders. Keep watching this space over the next few months and I'll share some of the findings as I complete the analysis.
If you haven't completed the survey and you'd like to be part of developing these benchmarks, please feel free to click on the link and complete the survey. I reckon we are all going to get a few useful results from the exercise!