Planning for success

Monday 22nd December 2008

The New Year is the best time in the calendar to take a close look at the next twelve months and plan activities to make sure that your farm is run as efficiently and profitably as possible. By planning today, you can identify what went well in the past twelve months, what was less successful, and set down a route map that will help predict the needs for the next winter.

"Planning makes good sense and helps save money, simply through identifying what to buy, how much to buy, and when to buy," says Andy Hawken, Cornwall Farmers' Ruminant Technical Specialist. "And always plan for a realistic year. While 2008 was a year of particularly poor weather, it would be unusual for the following twelve months to be equally wet; it makes good commercial sense to plan for 2009 to be less than perfect."

The need to provide a balanced diet for the herd is of paramount concern, and the crop growth and quality from the previous year gives an indication of what supplements might be required in the next twelve months.

"It's all about the four building blocks of a ration; starch, protein, sugar and fibre," says Andy Hawken. "A healthy cow requires between ten and fifteen tonnes of forage per year, so planning is crucial to make sure that the farm is producing the right quantity and quality of fresh weight forage. Ask some questions, such as, was enough fertilizer used to produce the levels of grass; can slurry be better used to reduce fertiliser costs, therefore making forage cheaper? Consideration is required of the physical nature of next year's silage, required chop lengths and cutting dates. Look at your previous year's figures and you can predict, with some accuracy, what else you might need in terms of supplements to make the home grown forage work. Or perhaps the fundamentals need to be addressed, such as switching crops to make sure the farm is actually growing what it is required."

For starches, farmers can grow maize, cereals (which could be rolled, crimped or caustic treated) or perhaps use stock feed potatoes. Forages add fibre to the diet but sugar beet, citrus pulp and soya hulls are alternative supplements, however, consider crop choices to help fibre balance. Similarly, crop choices can supplement proteins such as rape and soya, for example the use of clover in grass silages and 'bi-crop' wholecrops.

The result of good planning will be a forward-looking assessment of what can be grown in the next twelve months, which will in turn show how much supplementary balancing will be required through products such as Duchy Blends from Cornwall Farmers. "It's not about telling farmers to order more of our product," says Andy Hawken, "instead, it's a matter of good husbandry and ordering only what you need, when you need it. Plan now so that you can give your cow the best inputs and monitor the year as it progresses. Falling short of supplies always costs more. Naturally, most of what is required during the year is grown by the farmer. We complement that with feeds, plus good advice on crop varieties and husbandry from our arable team who know what grows well in the south west."

Cornwall Farmers Duchy Blends have recently introduced the Supreme Match 2008 range of blended feeds to help balance many of the issues and difficulties that are likely to be faced in the next twelve months. The flexible ration can be balanced to meet each farmer's specific requirements.

To discuss these issues and for further information from Cornwall Farmers, contact Andy Hawken on 07901 854463; Tom Mann on 07901 854477 or Robin Hawkey on 07770 816581.