Is your farm business sustainable?

A suite of new videos has been produced from the MLA Producer Forum at Beef Australia 2015 so you can watch the line-up of speakers share what the levy is delivering in the areas of R&D and marketing.

One of these speakers is Dr Phil Holmes who presented his findings from the MLA-funded Northern Beef Situation Analysis – an insight into the profit drivers of northern beef industries.

Phil, who co-authored the report, suggests for a farm business to be economically sustainable in the long term, it must be able to:

  1. generate a return that meets or exceeds its cost of capital
  2. fund all current operating expenses and operating capital expenditure through internally generated working capital
  3. renumerate its owners adequately, at least to the standard of the average wage earner
  4. maintain a safe level of equity
  5. have the capacity to repay debt principal in a timely manner
  6. be able to survive business succession with the business and the family remaining intact
  7. provide for the independent retirement of the existing owners
  8. survive and prosper in the long term without the erosion of environmental capital (ie be environmentally sustainable).

Watch Phil’s presentation on the findings from the Situation Analysis, along with the other speakers from the Forum.

Read the Improving the performance of northern beef enterprises (PDF 17 MB).

This manual identifies key information which helps producers understand and improve the profitability of northern beef businesses. It will help motivated producers:

  • assess and understand their own business and its strengths and weaknesses
  • focus efforts by identifying important factors which have a big impact on the performance of their enterprise
  • remove distractions, by identifying factors which do not have a big influence on business performance
  • develop their own roadmap to becoming a ’good business‘, or a better business.

For more information visit the MLA website or free call (in Australia) 1800 023 100 or email info@mla.com.au