The software provides a way to easily build and control an on-farm database, providing productive, profitable and sustainable insights. Information can be shared across a farming operation, to off-farm advisors or to other platforms such as financial software providers, processors or organisations that determine a farm's licence to operate.
Sam Waugh is currently in his third season at Donald's Farm, located on the outskirts of Auckland. The farm was bequeathed by the late Donald Pearson to NZ Young Farmers in 2018 to help connect people with farming and the agricultural sector. Donald's farm has significantly lifted both pasture and milk production under Sam's management.
Implementing farm reporting tool Trev, along with an improving milk price, is helping the small-herd farm become more financially viable and sustainable.
"Our current system is a pasture first, spring-calving system. We grow approximately 8ha of chicory each year which is used to feed young stock and provide a quality feed for milkers over the summer months. The farm is rolling to steep hill country, with very heavy clay-based soil type and an average rainfall of 1,400mm."
In Sam's first season the farm was struggling to get over 30,000 kgMS however with the introduction of their pasture renewal strategy and tools such as Trev the farm has been able to lift production to 37,000 kgMS for the 2020/21 season (>5% above target), and is currently tracking +6% for this season.
Sam says that being such a small farm, and taking the additional education lens, turning a profit can be a real challenge. The farm has had to ensure that they have a really strong cost discipline.
"The way I see it, there's always sales people coming up the driveway but it's about questioning whether the potential for a new cost is going to make the farm more money or save money elsewhere - if the answer is no, then it's not worth doing," says Sam.
"The other thing we've had to be open to is learning new systems and questioning our existing practices, even if it's only after a few years, asking is this still the best thing to be doing for our farm? Trev is a new tool we've introduced to our toolbox in the past 18 months and we're really starting to see the results."
Donald's farm keeps a keen eye on KPIs relating to operational efficiencies. Sam says utilising tools like Trev means he is more easily able to monitor the number of cows going into the vat and as a result can directly calculate per cow production. Sustainability is another important measure at Donald's Farm. Sam says they've always had a focus on making sure the farm is operating sustainably in all senses - from a financial, environmental and social perspective.
"This farm in particular has a lot of eyes across it so we're always really aware that we represent the industry as well."
As part of their sustainability KPIs, Donald's Farm is well on its way to achieving excellence under The Co-operative Difference framework - Te Tihi, successfully achieving this level in the 2021/22 season.
Maintaining a low somatic cell count has been a focus for Sam with some good results, last season averaging a 70,000 SCC/mL. This helped the farm perform well within Fonterra's Co-Operative Difference framework supplying 95% of milk at an excellence level. The farm also has a focus on shed hygiene, animal welfare, and is two years into an extensive farm environmental plan.
Achieving under The Co-operative Difference framework this season could also see the farm benefit up to a 10c premium in its milk cheque.
Sam says regular operational and financial reporting has been instrumental, both at a management and a governance level. Sam uses both Trev and Figured (taking advantage of their recent integration) to provide monthly reporting to his board and credits the tools with helping him to make swift and good management decisions which help drive performance and on-farm excellence.
"You often hear the saying that the difference between a good farmer and an average farmer is a week. But what that week means is information. So to be able to make decisions a week earlier you've actually got to have information and data to do so. That's where the information out of Trev is great because you get to clearly see how you're tracking in both your weekly and monthly reports, alongside the likes of Trev's customisable charts. The data input side of things is also very quick and doesn't require too much effort, especially with automated data flowing in like milk production from Fonterra."
To find out how you can put Trev on the team, head to mytrev.com/farmsource.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Donald's Farm key information
- 74 ha (63 effective ha)
- Running 120 cows (110 Jerseys, and 10 milking shorthorns through an 11-a-side herringbone shed)
- +37,000 kgMS per annum
- Rolling to steep hill country
- Heavy clay-based soil type
- Average rainfall of 1,400mm
- 1 FTE Farm Manager + Relief Milker
- The farm aims to host 5,000+ students annually.