Good planning will deliver a work-life balance

At the start of every year there are endless media guides on how best to set your goals and plan the years ahead.

Common sense (which we know is not very common) and countless studies show that to be successful in achieving goals or dreams, it is imperative to have a plan. We’ve all heard the saying “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. So why do so few farmers have written farm business plans?

I believe farmers are completely turned off by the prospect of spending hours in front of a computer either alone or with their consultant/advisor. They don’t like trawling through pages of spreadsheets to come up with one figure to see if they will have a surplus or deficit of cash in the years ahead.

Farmers in general are outdoor people — they like to walk the land, view the livestock or crops and discuss the merits of this system or that system.

Consultants and advisors sometimes forget this fact, which can result in the farmer disliking the planning process.

In fact, a farm business plan should never be prepared without walking the land and viewing the livestock or crops.

The first time a business plan is prepared with a farmer by a consultant/ advisor, there will be lots of questions for the farmer to answer so the time must be put in, but as a relationship builds up between consultant/ advisor and the farmer, this process becomes faster and more time-efficient. The availability of online information on farms also helps speed up the process.

There are three areas for a farmer to consider when preparing a farm business plan; a) physical plan b) financial plan and c) a personal plan:

Physical Plan

The physical plan is the part most farmers enjoy — how many acres needed, how many cows can be milked or what is the crop rotation to meet greening requirements.

Farmers generally have the physical plan already worked out in their heads. The role of the consultant/ advisor is to oversee whether it is realistic or not.

Key Performance Indices (KPIs) for the various enterprises are critical to accurate physical planning, i.e. historical milk and crop yields, etc.

Financial Plan

When farmers hear of a farm business plan, the financial plan usually flashes into their minds.

Memories of adding up reams of figures to get the farm plan assignment in agricultural college to work, or attempting to do a farm plan alone for a KT discussion group are usually negative experiences. At the end of the day, a financial plan will see if you have a surplus or deficit of cash for the next 12 months.

For best results, it is probably best to leave the accounting to the accountant, the planning to the consultant/adviser and the farming to the farmer.

Personal Plan

A personal plan —most farmers would ask, what is that? Perhaps this is the missing ingredient in the planning process.

A personal plan focuses and plans your ‘me time’. We currently hear about the labour crisis on Irish farms,