Twenty years ago DairyNZ developed its powerful online platform DairyBase, which helps farmers drive profit and identify positive changes for their farm business.
To celebrate the milestone farmers are being encouraged to visit the DairyNZ stand at Fieldays to learn how DairyBase can help them better understand and enhance their farm system and business performance.
And as an extra celebration, there is no cost to farmers to use DairyBase as of June 1.
“DairyBase helps farmers compare key performance indicators and determine what is working well and opportunities for improvement,” said DairyNZ head of economics Mark Storey.
“It is New Zealand’s largest and longest-running dairy benchmarking service.
“It’s a great example of DairyNZ bringing its farm systems and credible evidence-based approach together to benefit farmers,” Storey said.
“DairyBase is one of hundreds of tools and resources DairyNZ and predecessors Dairy InSight and Dexcel have developed on behalf of farmers over the past 20 years; with more being developed to help progress a positive future for dairy farming.”
The platform allows farmers who register to track their progress towards long and short-term goals, draw comparisons against other farms and keep a tight rein on farm working expenses.
Two types of benchmarking are available – the business’s financial performance and the farm’s physical aspects, comparing them to industry standards or targets.
Farmers receive reports based on data they provide, with both national and regional benchmarking available.
DairyBase is an online tool from Dairy NZ used to drive performance.
The DairyBase team is on-hand at Fieldays to show farmers how the online platform works, including its strength in analysing farm trends over time and can show farmers where their farm may sit on regional benchmarking graphs.
“More than 20 per cent of New Zealand dairy farms contribute their farm and business data to DairyBase each year,” Storey said.
“Farmers and rural professional advisors, including accountants, can be sure the benchmark information is extremely robust, enabling confident and effective decision making.
“DairyBase is being continually improved with DairyNZ’s farm systems, economics and digital technology teams working together to deliver the best service to farmers.”
Tokoroa dairy farmer George Moss has been using DairyBase for all of its 20 years - providing his farm’s physical and financial data and using the reports to continually improve his farming operation.
“DairyBase data has been pivotal to our decision-making and has driven strategy and subsequent direction of travel for our business,” said Moss.
He is also part of DairyNZ’s Baseline Project which is an extension of DairyBase and collects more detailed environmental data from the 450 farmers involved.
Qualified data collectors visit the Baseline farmers to help the farmers collate and input the data across physical, financial and environmental performance.
Storey said this comprehensive information and aggregated data from DairyBase informs DairyNZ’s advocacy on behalf of farmers and helps keep New Zealand dairy farmers at the forefront of the world’s dairy sector.
DairyBase and Baseline data contributes to sector statistics which identify further DairyNZ work needed to support farmers and the sector to progress a positive future.
This includes supporting DairyNZ’s science, research and development work alongside farmers. DairyBase is also a major source of data for DairyNZ’s Econ Tracker tool and its farm financial forecast.
After registering for DairyBase, farmers can choose the level of information they provide. A basic financial analysis requires basic farm business information or the farmer can provide more detailed physical farm information.
Relevant data includes farm factors such as farm and herd size, employees and milksolids. It may also include feed seasonal production, fertiliser and reproduction information.
The DairyBase team analyses the farm’s data and end of financial year statements and provides the farmer with reports, which rural professionals can help interpret.
Opportunities identified for improvement may include, for example, changes to increase production efficiency or to achieve greater financial efficiency. This may include cutting costs or increasing pasture and crop eaten.
The benchmarking reports can be customised to compare a farm against specific categories a farmer is particularly interested in; such as similar business types, farm systems and more.
A minimum of 20 farmers is needed for each benchmark group and the data is aggregated – individual information is confidential.
