The AHDB is looking for eight more arable enterprises to join its monitor farm benchmarking scheme.

Farmers who are currently in the scheme have seen benefits including cost savings and peer support.

Due to the success of the scheme, the AHDB has decided to widen the project and is looking for monitor farms in specific counties – Norfolk, Cheshire, Kent, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Cornwall and Dorset.

The first eight English monitor farmers were announced in March 2014, quickly followed by another batch, to total sixteen in England and Wales, in addition to four already in Scotland.

They all provide a forum for like-minded farmers to gather and exchange ideas and knowledge in a familiar and informal setting, and subject their business to intense scrutiny.

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Since the scheme’s launch, the farmers involved have hosted meetings, workshops and farm walks, submitted their physical and financial results for comparison to others and had their management skills questioned and challenged.

How the scheme works

Underpinning each monitor farm is a business group that gets farmers together with the aim of improving the financial performance of each farm, explains AHDB’s chief technical officer Richard Laverick.

“This is done in a number of ways with the relevant expertise, but benchmarking is the central focus and is being used to understand costs of production and find ways to make efficiency gains,” he says.

Once the farm’s financial data has been gathered, group members can make comparisons. This way, they gain a better understanding of where they are and how they can make improvements, Mr Laverick adds.

He reveals that there were almost nine applicants for every monitor farm place when the initiative was first launched.

“We had a fantastic response and in the short time the scheme has been operating, more than 2,400 farmers have participated in the meetings,” he says.

Now there’s a need to find eight more willing candidates, to fill the geographical gaps in the current set-up and extend the network to new areas.

“We are looking for monitor farms in certain counties – Norfolk, Cheshire, Kent, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Cornwall and Dorset – to appoint for the next three years,” he says.

Mr Laverick is keen to get the main messages from the meetings out beyond the group, as well as to get more people to attend the meetings on a regular basis.

What the monitor farmers say

Being a monitor farmer goes way beyond simply providing the venue and focus for meetings, agree the host farmers.

Leamington Spa monitor farmer Rob Fox of Squab Hall Farm has used benchmarking to find £15/t savings on his costs of production, set targets for labour and machinery costs and expand an existing joint venture.

“But it hasn’t just been improving the business. It has also been about my development as a manager, which is invaluable. I have learned a great deal and developed new skills,” he says.

Colchester monitor farmer Tom Bradshaw values the interaction with other growers, especially those he wouldn’t otherwise have had contact with.

“The groups work very well. We are building rapport and trust, which is helping us to tackle the complexities of running a modern farming business,” he says.