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Milk Manager News May 2023 – Specialist Advice Plans

10 May 2023

With the changing situation of declining milk price and still relatively high input costs, now is a great time to take stock of the financial health of your business to ensure you are prepared and can take action as required. The latest monthly Kingshay Dairy Manager results show that while milk price was 34% higher than the same month last year (February), feed costs were 31% higher and purchased feed costs had risen to almost 14ppl (it is worth noting that the results for Scottish farms only was 16ppl for all purchased feed).

The Farm Advisory Service offers funding of up to £1000 to prepare specialist advice plans (maximum two plans per business per year) on a variety of topics, which allows you to spend time with an accredited advisor focusing on your business, establishing the current financial position, and making a plan for the next 12 months to ensure you remain resilient.

The three main areas which would be of interest to dairy businesses are:

· Farm Business Efficiency - take an in-depth look at your cost of production, concentrate feed use, milk from forage, heifer rearing targets, health KPI’s (lameness, mastitis cases, rumen health etc) and fertility. These are all drivers of production which have an impact on profitability and cashflow.

· Resilience Planning - an opportunity to assess the overall resilience of the business to deal with change. Taking a wider look at infrastructure, labour, financial security, opportunities and threats facing the business.

·Soil & Nutrient Management - there has been a huge increase in the number of farmers soil sampling as a result of the Preparing for Sustainable Farming (PSF) funding which is available Preparing for Sustainable Farming full guidance (ruralpayments.org). To help you make the most of the information, this specialist advice plan can allow you to undertake a full health assessment of your soils and create a nutrient budget taking into account the nutrients available in your slurry. Bringing together all this information will ensure that you are using the most appropriate fertiliser to compliment slurry, are targeting the fields most in need with lime, and improving soil health which will increase grass growth potential.

For more information and to sign up please visit Specialist Advice | Helping farmers in Scotland | Farm Advisory Service (fas.scot)

alison.clark@sac.co.uk; 01776 702649

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