Monitor initiative finds optimisation is the key

With no fewer than nine new monitor farms set up during 2017, the organisers have found that optimisation of farm systems has emerged as the “stand out” theme to emerge over the course of the first 12 months of the programme.

Giving an end-of-year review of the initiative – which is jointly run by Quality Meat Scotland (QMS) and the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB) – Scotland’s cereals and oilseeds manager, Gavin Dick said that each and every one of the nine farms in the programme was working hard to ensure they had the right systems in place for their farm.

He said that the farmers involved were then reviewing different elements of their various enterprises with their farmer business groups to ensure they were operating as efficiently as possible.

With new monitor farms set up in Nithsdale, the Scottish Borders, North Ayrshire, the Lothians, Angus, Lochaber, Morayshire, Sutherland and Shetland, he said that across the entire Scottish Government funded programme, practices were being reviewed and tightened up:

“This is happening in both in the arable and livestock sides, and all the farms have business groups which are benchmarking so they can compare both where they are

0 Many of the farms focused on grass management performing strongly and also where they might be lagging behind.”

On the livestock side, many of the farms had been focusing on grass management, in terms of grass quality and in the use of rotational grazing for cattle and sheep.

QMS head of industry development Doug Bell said the programmes provided vital support to farmers and growers building sustainable and productive businesses:

“Sharing information and best practice is at the heart of the programme. There is no doubt that the most effective knowledge exchange takes place between farmers,” said Bell.

He said the ‘been there, done that’ experiences of fellow farmers added credibility to messages which practical farmers really valued.

Bell said that becoming more productive and profitable was a key driver for manyofthefarmersandall nine Monitor Farms would be using the AHDB benchmarking system Farmbench over the coming months to better understand their figures and where they could make savings or add value.

“Already the Borders Monitor Farm is looking at whether organic certification could provide a premium as well as the possibility of bringing deer onto the farm,” said Bell. l The next meeting of the Borders monitor farm, at the Mitchell family’s Whitriggs Far, will see flock health come under the microscope.

Lynn Gibson from SAC Vet services will highlight issues surrounding the infectious “iceberg diseases” – where only a few problems are diagnosed but a larger underlying problem exists.

The meeting begins at 11 am on Jan 10.