Fiinding reliable information on truly top performers in order to improve on-farm performance can be frustrating.
The Red Meat Sector Strategy report states that top-performing businesses in any sector understand and actively manage their costs, and that top-performing farmers are not defined by their land class, age or farm size, but rather by their behaviour and a willingness to invest.
For farmers wanting more insight in order to improve their own performance, such information doesn’t go far enough. To dig up more, Country-Wide approached a leading South Island rural accountancy firm and asked about the traits and attributes of farmers already at the top of their game.
Shand Thomson has offices in Balclutha and Dunedin and employs 45 staff. It has over 60 years’ experience in the rural sector and has clients throughout the lower half of the South Island.
Economic farm surplus is defined as total gross farm income minus farm working expenditure and adjusted for livestock number changes. It is a useful tool for measuring operational performance because it does not take debt servicing or depreciation into account.
