The DAFF ‘Farm Business Resilience Program’

First - what is the ‘Farm Business Resilience Program’?

The Farm Business Resilience Program (FBRP) is a DAFF initiative that provides subsidised farm business coaching and farm planning services to eligible farm businesses.

If you elect to work with David Brown Consulting you will receive as a minimum:

• A farm benchmark report, with comparative data

• A business plan

• A cash flow analysis, including scenario testing

• A risk management plan

• 20 hrs of online coaching, working on parts of your business that are of interest to you, and the items listed above 

Secondly - what is benchmarking under the FBRP?

Benchmarking, either individually or in groups, is a tried and tested method for farmers wishing to understand more about their farm businesses, to swap ideas with like-minded producers, and to find ways to improve their profitability.  

If you participate via a benchmarking group, you will:

• Benchmark our farm in a group - this provides relevant regional data for discussion

• Share your data among the group (but no-one else!) via a benchmark report 

• Meet once as a group for a 1-day workshop:

• to discuss the outcomes of the benchmarking data, 

• identify opportunities for improvement,

• swap ideas and knowledge regarding farm operational and business issues.

• The key data that will be shared will be:

• Income, cost, and profit data per DSE and per hectare (not whole farm)

• Stocking rates

• Cost of production per unit of production

• Price received

• Production per hectare

• Production per DSE

• Some other minor KPIs

• Note the following data is not shared

  • Data concerning financing, such as equity, interest, debt etc. (its of little value, and groups often want to get to know each other first)

• Data concerning whole farm figures (such as total income or profit)

• Note - if a group workshop is run then some of the 20-hrs of individual farm coaching will go towards the workshop

Group rules include:

• The meeting will be held under Chatham House Rule - everyone is to share freely in the meeting in the interest of solving complex problems and extracting the most of the 'meeting of minds', but no information is to be shared or spoken of outside the meeting

• No data, no participation

How to apply?

The FBRP is inviting producers to nominate their preferred service provider via an online registration form (click for form).

The form asks if the participant has been referred to the '3-month business coaching (online)' program. Select ‘yes,’ and then elect 'David Brown Consulting', among other service providers. Once you've done this, DAFF, or their agents, will be in touch with you to organise your involvement.

Cost?

The program cost is $1400 per business.

The total professional services costs are in excess of $10,000 per business.

The difference between what you pay and the total costs are generously picked-up by the DAFF.