Business Tools

The Farm Advisory Service provides guidance for farmers to improve and strengthen the resilience of their farm businesses.  Support includes access to Scottish relevant information on; markets, industry developments, financial and technical benchmarks and business planning.

Market situation and prospects

• We produce new edition of Agribusiness News and Milk Manager News each month.  See publications for the latest version of each.
• Scottish farm output prices – a dataset of Scottish farm output prices for key commodities including; cereals and oilseeds, potatoes, beef, sheep and milk.
• Scottish farm input prices – a dataset of Scottish farm input prices for key expenditures including feed, fertiliser and fuel.

Benchmarking

• Understanding farm accounts – an interactive tool will show you how to use the information in your accounts to make better business decisions.
• Livestock Production Calculator – an interactive tool that aims to help mixed and drystock (beef and sheep) farmers.
• Whole farm benchmarks – the latest analysis from the 2016/17 Scottish Farm Business Survey.
• Enterprise gross margins – the latest analysis from the 2016/17 Scottish Farm Business Survey.
• Milk from forage calculator – a simple tool to estimate your production from forage.

Budgeting and financial planning

• Farm Management Handbook 2017/18
• Cash flow Budgeting – a downloadable tool to help you budget the year ahead.
• Strategic planning – this section provides step by step guidance on how to make better decisions regarding the long term future of your business.