A County Down Business Development Group (BDG), led by CAFRE Dairying Adviser Judith McCord, recently held a meeting on finance and planning on the farm of John Coulter, Dromara.
The meeting began with a discussion on the reasons why investment is a good thing in a farm business and then moved to the availability of tools and information to help make investment decisions.
The group agreed on the importance of gathering information on farm in the decision making process and discussed what CAFRE advisers, banks and performance recording did for their business. The management factors that are important in generating a sustainable profit to allow a good income and reinvestment in the business were debated. John then led the group around his farm discussing the importance of his farm management decisions and the outcomes.
Cormac McKervey from Ulster Bank joined the group for the third part of the meeting to discuss profit and growing a dairy business. He outlined the fundamental matrix of having a strategy, the ability to implement the investment and the capital requirements when wanting to invest.
CAFRE Benchmarking is available to members of BDGs and is an integral part of any investment strategy. Having detailed performance figures for your dairy business highlights areas for improvement and provides good evidence to lenders of financial viability.
If you are part of a BDG your Dairying Adviser can arrange financial benchmarking for you and then help with forecast budgets for future investment projects.
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