This week we hosted our annual farm field trip for the Lincoln University Bachelor of Agricultural Commerce second-year cohort.

This visit never disappoints. We get two busloads of keen young students, full of enthusiasm and questions.

Their task is to understand our arable farm system and gather sufficient data from us to compile an annual budget and full monthly cashflow, with reconciled stock and produce on hand ledgers.

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About the author

David Clark

Farmer Focus writer

David Clark runs a 463ha fully irrigated mixed farm with his wife Jayne at Valetta, on the Canterbury Plains of New Zealand’s south island. He grows 400ha of cereals, pulses, forage and vegetable seed crops, runs 1,000 Romney breeding ewes and finishes 8,000 lambs annually.

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They are provided with some of our base data and have to fill in the gaps with questioning. It is an intimate look into our business and family.

I love the discussions as they try to get their heads around a complex arable system and then try to make sense of it all in a budget.

Each year, they struggle to grasp the wild swings in cashflow as we complete a harvest with all crop still on hand.

We also spend upwards of NZ$1m (£470,000) on store lambs, cashflow most of that for the winter and start selling lambs and receive crop income during mid-spring.

This year we asked them what “sustainability” meant, and to their credit all of the groups mentioned financial viability alongside the often talked of sustainability of soil, water, animal welfare, climate and biodiversity.

We then talked about the “sustainability table” and how it all fell over if one of the legs was broken.

As it was a budgeting field trip, that led to the discussion about how it was largely forgotten by most folk beyond the farm gate – particularly politicians and multi-national corporate types – that it was essential food producers remain financially viable so other goals can be met.

My view, shared with the students, is that food production systems worldwide are broken and farmers are being beaten with the other legs of the table.

It was a great day, well worth taking some time away from the busyness of spring to interact with the bright young folk who are the future of farming.