After banking profit in Profit Principle #5 you might be asking “What do I do now?” In short, you will be setting up to capitalise on the next profit period.
As mentioned previously, put your major energy into the profit periods to receive profit. If you put it into non profit periods, you won’t receive profit. However, non profit periods or “in-between periods” are important because they allow you to prepare to utilise the next opportunity. Here are the main steps:
Review the next opportunity. From your GrowFARM Season Plan, you will have already identified the next targeted profit period. Know your required parameters for this period such as; animal species and type, required liveweight gains, animal numbers, market values / influences (if purchasing), full feeding requirements, and above all - pasture cover and quality. What covers do I need to make the animals in the next profit period really deliver for me? What quality of pasture do I need? What is the season doing between now and then? How will that impact the grass? If you understand what you need to achieve, you can then plan and do what it takes to make it all happen.
Determine what you need to do to achieve those parameters by the start of the next profit period. Do you need to hold the pasture in its current condition? Do you need to trim it quite hard early on to then let it freshen up? Do you need to just let it recover from grazing (in the previous profit period) in time for the next one? Do you need to let it come away even more than it already has? Put the plan down on paper or screen so you can work to it.
Do what you need to do to hit that profit period ready to go. This is the challenge! Your decisions from the above step will dictate your actions here. You may use existing breeding animals or a new stock class to trim pastures. If so, you will already know the profitability and may be prepared to accept a small profit or even a small loss to allow the next major opportunity to happen. Pre-empting this by using another stock class during the previous profit period to help set up for the next opportunity can be helpful e.g. trimming pasture in late spring/summer to set up for early autumn opportunities. They will not be the previous profit animals because their major purpose is not to make profit. The profit animals must be allowed to generate profit for you, not be limited by restricted feeding or being carried too long through lack of understanding or action on your part.
You could decide to have very few animals on (maybe just your capital stock) because you want the pasture to hold for the next profit period. Many farmers miss this point for winter management and take the winter covers down so low that there is no opportunity left for the spring, including not being able to fully feed lactating breeding stock. This is not a smart move if your business relies quite heavily on breeding animals.
So, make sure you work from profit period to profit period to profit period. After all, “operating profitably and continuing to operate profitably, year on year” is a great definition of sustainability.
In summary, Profit Principle #6 incorporates repeating Principles #2 - #4 to allow #5 to happen all over again. This is a fairly simple pattern but takes great thinking, tools and decision making to put it into action. That is why we have GrowFARM!
This is the final article in the 6 Profit Principles series. In next month’s GrowFARM Connector, we will discuss various market opportunities / livestock deals and how they can be very useful contributors to the delivery of profit.