Farmers in South Africa face changes on a daily basis and need to be able to adapt and manage droughts, escalating fuel prices, instability in market conditions and labour issues.
Farm management skills such as decision-making, recordkeeping and understanding farm finances can go a long way in creating resilient farmers, able to plan ahead to weather the storms of farming.
This section, helps new farmers to understand principles such as ‘what is farm management?’, ‘how to do farm recordkeeping?’ and ‘how to make decisions?’. Content is sourced from training material for extension advisors developed by a team of consultants lead by the University of Pretoria.
Researchers include Dr Joe Stevens, Pieter van Heerden and Prof MC Laker. The project was funded by the Water Research Commission (WRC).
A business plan usually includes a summary of your farming concept, background information, the products the farm is producing, as well as a...
Since farming is a business and money and time is at stake, making a decision should not be improvised or be done over-hasty....
Banks, government agencies and other funders demand good farm recordkeeping before money or loans will be made available....
It will not only have an effect on the management of a farm’s finances but also have an effect on the speed and ease of decision-making an...
When starting a farm, or even when already farming, a farmer needs to understand the costings and financial concepts of farming....
Production records are useful to identify production problems so that farm performance can be improved....
The inventory list can include the price of the item, the value of the stock, the year it was bought, the expected lifetime and the deprecia...
Good farm management enables the farmer to respond better to these changes in order to manage costs, minimise risks and maximise profits....