GETTING STARTED

Farm Costs is an easy to use online tool for farming businesses to help identify their operational costs. By anonymously comparing individual businesses with similar enterprises, managers can make evidence-based decisions to improve performance and profitability. This will ensure that businesses are able to manage the many challenges facing the sector in the future.

Farm Costs specifically covers Labour, machinery & general costs – also referred to as “Operational Costs”. It can be used to identify the cost of running any enterprise, whether they are related to direct farming or not (e.g. winter wheat or environmental stewardship) 

Benchmarking is the comparison of one business with other similar businesses to gauge its’ performance. Any differences can be analysed to highlight the reasons and corrective action. 

Farm Costs allows each member to compare agreed key performance indicators with other similar businesses. This will help to identify areas of weakness and to take steps to put them right. Similarly, it will also show areas where member businesses outperform their peer group. Members will be able to take part in facilitated discussions, to allow them to learn from each other and make evidence-based decisions to improve individual profitability. The aim of Farm Costs is to provide members with a better understanding of their own businesses and put them in control of their future. 

Farm Costs is the only program in the UK that generates accurate, timely information on operational costs. The system has been developed over many years since its inception by the Joint Venture Farming Group in 2004. This unique program has been refined and perfected by the original core membership to provide bespoke data which has improved their arable businesses

Signing up to the service could not be simpler. Once a business has followed a straightforward registration process on the Farm Costs website, the data will then be submitted to the administrator for checking and validating if required, before being included in the anonymised benchmarking system. Each new member will then be taken through a series of tutorials to understand the system and learn how to enter data and generate reports. A detailed user manual is available for reference purposes. 

The length of time inputting data is dependent on the number and size of enterprises within each business. Many farmers find that they already have a large proportion of the data needed to generate the reports and therefore the process is far shorter than initially expected. The system has been designed to minimise the data entry process, for example the farming season has been divided into three periods thereby cutting down the number of data entry sessions. 

Many managers track their costs and instinctively understand the strengths and weaknesses of their businesses. Operational costs traditionally make up over 40% of the cost of production for most arable crops. Machinery inflation has increased significantly in recent years, rising by over 30% in some cases. The information from Farm Costs will allow managers to make evidence based choices about machinery & implement combinations, to improve their overall business performance. No other computer program can do this with the same accuracy 

All farms are different, which is why there is a chosen set of key performance indicators that provide the most useful and accurate analysis of each member’s strengths and weaknesses. Farm Costs requires all users to input data using the same rules, making it easier to make accurate comparisons between businesses. 

All data that is submitted via the Farm Costs website for approval. It is checked and validated by the administrator before being included in the anonymised benchmarks. 

Farm Costs records and measures performance indicators which fall into the following categories: 

1. Physical – crop yields (t/Ha), or work rate (Ha/Hr). 

1. Costs of Operations (£/Ha) – each category of operation; primary cultivations, secondary cultivations, drilling, rolling, fertiliser application, spraying, harvesting, carting, & miscellaneous costs. Each is split between labour, machine and implement costs. Individual machine and implement combinations are available for review.    

1. Cost by Crop (£/Ha and £/t) – cost for year crop year which is built up over the season and expressed on a per hectare and per tonne basis. 

1. Labour costs (£/Hr) – average cost per hour for staffing compliment. Labour efficiency analysis. 

1. Running costs of machines and implements (£/Hr) – Costs of individual machines separating out standing costs, repair costs and fuel costs. 

1. Cost by Farm (£/Ha) – analysis by crop by individual holding to compare soil type and geographic differences. 

By signing up to Farm Costs and inputting their data, members will be able to access live reports at any time via their personal account on the website, enabling them to reliably compare their farm’s performance against similar businesses completely anonymously. Every cost can be drilled down into individual machine performance. Level 3 members will be invited to take part in facilitated discussions, where they can review their data as a group. These insights will enable them to identify and evaluate best practice, making informed decisions to improve profitability

Farm Costs service are split into the following categories: 

1. Level 1 – Program only. Data collection, cost analysis of own data by operation, by cost centre, contractor profitability and (where available) year on year costs .  £750 per annum
   

1. Level 2 – Benchmarking. As above plus benchmarking against all data sets as KPI's to identify individual cost performance against best, worst and average.   + £250 per annum
   

1. Level 3 – Seminar. Presentation & discussion against chosen subject areas.  Identification of best practice, machinery and implement costs comparison etc. (at cost).

Yes, Farm Costs is designed to help businesses of all sizes. 

Absolutely secure & nobody but you (without your consent).

We are committed to keeping your data secure. 256 Bit encryption ensures a secure connections from our server to your browser. Certified to ISO 27001 our server is protected by the highest level of physical and cyber protection with a Cisco ASA Firewall.

Once we have your data we don't share any recognisable data with anybody (unless you decide to join one of our discussion groups) We will use your data anonymously for comparative purposes and our average cost calculations to show you and all our subscribers how well they are performing. We re strictly committed to adhering to GDPR legislation.

1. All Farm Costs users can access reports at any time using the website. Reports can be generated according to different criteria that a user selects e.g. £ per hectare, £ per tonne, £ per farm, £ per machine hour. 
2. As a member of a discussion group, managers can receive group reports and can take part in feedback meetings 

Farm Costs is an easy to use, confidential and fully validated tool, which helps managers to identify their business strengths and weaknesses. Understanding operational costs will allow members to reflect and fine tune, to make informed decisions to build a sustainable business for the future. This will help users to weather any uncertainty, grow their businesses. 

The aim of Farm Costs is to put managers in control of their future.