New Year resilience plans

The beginning of a new year is the perfect time to reflect on what you want to get out of your farm or croft. Many agri-businesses will want to maximise their current financial performance and identify opportunities to improve climate resilience, and/or take advantage of new grants or schemes on offer in 2022. The Farm Advisory Service (FAS) exists to support you to realise your farm or croft’s full potential. It can help you to access grant support and expert advice on a range of topics to help your business grow.

Understanding how your farm or croft is performing now is essential to identifying opportunities for improvement and optimising performance. A business resilience plan provided through FAS can help Scottish farmers, crofters and land managers develop a clear understanding of their business and where to go next.

Up to £1,000 worth of funding is available through FAS to help secure an approved adviser to develop a business resilience plan. The adviser will:

• assess the ability of your business to deal with changes in the supply chain and/or wider market;
• establish key performance indicators for financial resilience;
• analyse business exposure to risk;
• assess profitability and cash flow;
• review the ‘health’ of the balance sheet.

This specialist advice option works best in conjunction with, or followed up by, an Integrated Land Management Plan (ILMP). A farming business ILMP will provide a step-by-step guide on how a farm or croft can achieve its financial and environmental goals.

For more information or to apply for business resilience support, visit https://www.fas.scot/specialist-advice/

Contact FAS by phone on 0300 323 0161 or email advice@fas.scot