Farm Expansion Fundamentals Workshop – August 2022

Looking at expanding your agricultural business but don’t quite know what direction to take? John Francis from agricultural consultancy Agrista presented for producers in St George and Roma about the fundamentals of business expansion. Drawing on his comprehensive experience in farm management consultancy he explained how producers can evaluate the financial implications associated with enterprise expansion. This might include buying land, leasing land or intensification of existing operations. For John it is fundamentally important to have a strategy for the future and understanding why operating profit is key to your business. He also emphasized how financial literacy is vital to all businesses and stepped through some principles for producers to take home.

Feedback showed the workshop challenged producers to consider how their financial literacy was affecting their current operations. John strongly recommended that if you know your livestock figures upside down but struggle with understanding financial terminology, this workshop or a Business EDGE is a great place to start.

Click here to listen to a short interview with ABC radio host Belinda Sanders speaking with John Francis about the workshops.

Eight producers who attended the St George workshop gave the event a combined score of 4.75 out of 5 for time well spent, valuing the workshop information to their business highly with scores of 8 out of 10 and above. When asked about the financial value of the workshop to their businesses, they volunteered a combined value of more than $111,000 (not including one respondent stating the workshop was infinite in its value to their business).

Twelve producers who attended the Roma workshop gave the event a combined score of 4.5 out of 5 for time well spent, valuing the workshop information to their business highly with scores of 9 out of 10 and above. When asked about the financial value of the workshop to their businesses, they volunteered a combined value of more than $260,000.

These events were supported by the GrazingFutures Livestock Business Resilience and Farm Business Resilience projects (jointly funded by the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund and the Queensland Government), Leading Sheep, and with the support of the Australian Government’s Murray-Darling Basin Economic Development Program, via the Balonne Business Mentoring Project.