Having taken the time to prepare a Farm Business Plan, you shouldn’t discard other potential uses once you have a documented plan.
Your plan can attract financial backers or equity partners who need convincing of the economic viability of your business, its projected growth paths and likely chances of success.
Your Farm Plan is a reflection of your ability, commitment and dedication. It can convince others to support what you are doing. It can be used as a marketing tool to raise support for new enterprises or for the sale of your property.
The benefits of these issues is evidenced by the story of Graham and Bettina Spencer, who farmed near Dorrigo on the high plateau of northern NSW.
They have farmed a 187 hectare Dairy Farm on the Dorrigo Plateau near Coffs Harbour, NSW, Australia in partnership with Bettina’s parents since 1976. Graham and Bettina have investigated a number of diversification options for the property beyond their existing dairying operation over the years and have established and run a Farm-Stay Cottage on the property since 2002.
In 2003, they decided to undertake a Topoclimate Farm Plan with Topoclimate Services for their property to identify and map the soils and microclimates as a basis for providing better information for their farm decision making.
“We decided, after discussion with the Topoclimate staff, that our medium term goal was to increase productivity“ said Graham “and to improve the value of the farm for potential resale through the production of detailed, high quality information on our land resource”.
Graham and Bettina were very pleased with the detail of the information in their plan when it was produced and immediately used the information to improve their irrigation system on their farm and established some trial plantings of some of the crops identified by the Plan as being suitable for parts of their farm.
But the best benefit came when, in 2006, because of some health issues, Graham decided to sell and put the property on the market. After two weeks, a potential buyer knocked on the door and asked what they could tell him about the property. They were immediately able to give him a copy of their farm plan with all its detailed information on soils, microclimates, water resources including irrigation etc. and within another week the buyer had signed up at a price that was $200,000 more than they had been estimated by the agent a few weeks before.
“We reckon it was the Topoclimate Farm plan that did it,” “the buyer could immediately see all the information that he needed about the property, and it was presented in an professional way. It was the best investment we ever made in our farming life!” says Graham.
For further information regarding Topoclimate Farm Plans, view the Topoclimate website by clicking this link.
