Author Archive for Trish Nankivell

Farmanco Facts August 2020

By Trish Nankivell
Sunday, August 23rd, 2020

Farmanco Facts – August 2020

Chris Robinson, Agronomist writes this month’s Editorial. Chris is based at Kojonup and consults to clients throughout the Western Australian great southern high rainfall zone.

Keith Symondson introduces us to Aglytica, a spin off company that deals with our Profit Series via the Profit Analyser Platform. It allows non-client businesses both Australian and internationally to add their farm business data into our benchmarking product.

Keith says, “it’s early days for the new company and at the moment we are working through business plans and branding, at the same time as looking into more opportunities to increase the number of datasets and ways to improve the analysis of the data, so we can give more value back to the businesses who contribute their data.”

Greg Easton talks through the 2020 Profit Series, Farmanco’s benchmarking product that has been benchmarking our client data for over 21 years.

In part, Greg says “… long term “Return on Assets” demonstrates that the average farm business has been generating an average return above 5%, making the investment in farming competitive with many other investment opportunities.”

Key points of other articles in Farmanco Facts August, include:

Drought loans that you would be crazy not to apply for, by Ben Curtis
This loan could save you almost $600,000 over 10 years Applicant success rate is high Five hours completing the application process might provide you with the highest return for effort that you will ever get paid

 

Diamondback Moth 2020, by Peter Borstel
Diamondback Moth flights have occurred in canola growing areas Monitor for early build up before flowering Check thresholds for increasing numbers and grub sizes
Use a control method suited to your situation Be aware of synthetic pyrethroid insecticide resistance  

 

Precision Preparation – collecting improved data today, to apply Precision tomorrow, by Blake O’Meagher
Why implementing steps now towards Precision Ag applications can help boost returns when we take that step to Variable Rate (VR) on farm  Yield maps are yielding more tangible data Building soil maps from existing and easily accessible data sources

 

Omethoate (Le Mat) and ISCC Accreditation, by Mae Connelly
The EU certified sustainable canola market is a large and premium-paying market that can take over 90% of Australian canola exports The International Sustainability and Carbon Certification Scheme (ISCC) are moving Omethoate to the Prohibited Chemical list from 1st January 2023 When selling ISCC canola to CBH for 2020/21, you must declare on your ISCC form that you will phase out Omethoate by the 2023 deadline
It is unclear if you can continue to use Omethoate in 2021 and 2022 It is also yet to be announced how all the of the other buyers (who use the NGR ISCC program) will deal with the issue  

 

Water supply options, by Greg Easton
Scheme water is currently $2.65/kilolitre plus annual fees Dam storage ranges from $0.49¢ to $1.00/ kilolitre Bore water will cost from $0.12¢ to $0.94¢/ kilolitre
Big dams and high flow bores are the most cost-effective sources of stock water Covering dams can reduce evaporation by up to 90% Tank storage gives greater flexibility and better quality at around $2.00/kilolitre
Carting water ranges from $2.56 to $8.35/ kilolitre so is costly and can be logistically challenging Desalination will result in similar water costs to scheme but requires careful planning  

 

Every Farmanco Facts edition includes: WA Wool & Livestock Market Report and NSW / VIC Wool & Livestock Market Report

You can subscribe to any Farmanco publications via this link View Shop.

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Categories : Agronomy News, Farm Management News, Farmanco Facts, Grain Marketing News

Winners Photo Comp 2020

By Trish Nankivell
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2020

Winners PHOTO COMP 2020

             Farmanco 2020 Photo Competition Winners

This was the second year of our now annual Farmanco Photo Competition. We started advertising for entries back in April, and by the time we closed the competition we had received 267 entrants (compared to around 60 last year)! Thanks to everyone who participated. It was great to see your photos and hear some of the stories behind them.

While we thought last year’s entries were good, this year’s entries really raised the bar. We had six categories, as well as a general category for ‘other’ photos that didn’t fit any of the major categories, and an overall winner.

The judging panel was made up of the six Farmanco Board members. I know that in this type of competition people always say that it was really hard to make a final choice, but in this case, that’s really what happened. In some categories every judge had a different favourite, and we had to have a second round of judging based on a shortlist.

While no fights broke out, I’m sure some of us shed a tear as one of our favourites wasn’t selected. In a couple of categories, even this shortlist voting wasn’t enough, and we had to go to a secondary judging team (our admin team) to settle on a final winner. 

In addition to winning a $100 pre-loaded Visa card, the winning photos will be advertised across our social media channels as well as featuring in our various publications (both printed and electronic).

The overall winning picture, from Cameron Stewart, has been used as the front page of this year’s Profit Series and Gorgeous Cow and Learning from Grandpa appear as front pages to a couple of the sections in the book.

Even if you didn’t win in one of the categories, we will be using photos (attributed to the photographer) across all of our publications. So, you may see your picture pop up in Farmanco Facts, the Profit Series or Pestbook or even on our website.

The winners of this year’s Farmanco photo competition (drum roll please) are:

      • Crops: A Boy and his Crop – Deb Cristinelli
      • Machinery: Rainbow – Damien Gooding
      • People and Pets: Learning from Grandpa – Deb Cristinelli
      • Livestock: Gorgeous Cow – Ben Wickenton
      • Weeds and Pests: Budworm – Rhonda Carnegie
      • New Technology in Agriculture: View from above – Max Nield
      • Honourable Mention: (‘Other’ category) Locked and loaded – Greg Dayman
      • Overall Winner: Red Steiger – Cameron Stewart
Categories : About Farmanco, Promotional Flyers

Farmanco Facts July 2020

By Trish Nankivell
Thursday, July 16th, 2020

Farmanco Facts – July 2020

The July Editorial is written by Management Consultant Greg Easton. Greg consults to clients throughout the northern, central and southern wheatbelt of WA. See excerpt below:

Educated growers are aware of a greater number of innovations, including new management practices and strategies. Although formal education is important, ongoing training and attending events such as field days and training days have been shown to be the biggest driver for increases in farm profitability.

Larger farm businesses are likely to invest more in training and field days and this increases with the scale of the business. 80% of Australian farm businesses participate in training. A third of these businesses only attend field days as their main form of training. The most profitable businesses are more likely to participate in seminars, workshops, conferences, industry meetings and courses.

July key points:

Bookkeeping July 2020 (Eve Kent)
  • Bookkeeping to do list
  • Tax Rates: Covid-19 impact on business
  • Work from home deductions
  • Instant asset write-off for eligible businesses
    

 

Pasture legumes in the dryland regions of WA (Peter Borstel, Agronomist)
  • Early flowering variety selection is essential
  • Select paddocks with a controllable weed spectrum suitable for the legume pasture
  • Be mindful of input costs ensuring that grazing value or nitrogen input will cover this cost
  • Hard seeded varieties will persist better than soft seeded varieties
  • Plant species suitable to soil type and pH
  

 

Update on harvest weed seed control tools (David Cameron, Agronomist)
  • A large part of the cost of Harvest Weed Seed Control (HWSC) is associated with the nutrient loss or distribution
  • The harvester mounted mill solutions are becoming more affordable
  • There are mills accepting lower levels of control and providing cost and operational benefits

 

Sham contracting: What is it and how to ensure your business isn’t at risk (Stacey Bell, Management Consultant)
  • Having an ABN or issuing invoices doesn’t automatically make a person an independent contractor
  • Sham contracting can be done intentionally or carelessly by an employer. Regardless of how the arrangement comes about, it is illegal
  • The difference between an employee and an independent contractor is based on many different factors, not just one singular marker

 

Is India a new market for our Malt Barley? (Mae Connelly, Grain Marketer)
  • China’s 80% tariff on Australian barley effectively blocks us from our biggest market
  • India has been suggested as a replacement malt barley market
  • The potential growth in Indian beer consumption, and therefore malt barley demand, is exciting
  • However, the market will need to be developed from a low base and is expected to take years to reach a 500,000t target
    

 

Cover Cropping & Companion Cropping (Eric Nankivell, Management Consultant)
  • They are two distinct practices
  • Both have advantages and disadvantages
  • Cover crop – generally better in lower rainfall zones
  • Companion cropping – generally better in higher rainfall zones and mixed farms
  • These systems can be more productive but don’t necessarily apply everywhere
  

Every Farmanco Facts edition includes the WA Wool & Livestock Market and NSW / VIC Wool & Livestock Market Reports.

You can subscribe to any Farmanco publications View Shop

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Categories : Agronomy News, Bookkeeping, Farm Management News, Farmanco Facts, Grain Marketing

Farmanco Facts June 2020

By Trish Nankivell
Monday, June 22nd, 2020

Farmanco Facts – June 2020

Management Consultant Rob Sands consults to clients throughout the Central Wheatbelt. He pens the editorial for the June Farmanco Facts, and begins with:

 2020 will go down in history as the year that a virus stopped the world. Just when you thought you had enough to deal with, the Chinese made the decision to slap an 80.5% Import Tariff on Australian Barley for no defendable reason. Now there is a lot of “noise” around this issue, but what is clear to me is the reason China is promoting in the media has nothing to do with why they are actually doing it.

Articles this month include the following:

Measuring harvest losses: David Cameron (Agronomist, Moora)
In our canola crops we are losing an average of $75 per hectare as harvest losses Measuring losses in all crops means you can manage them Drop trays have improved and are effective for measuring losses

 

Wool – what do we do now? (Greg Easton, Management Consultant)
Wool prices fell by 27% from January 2020 to May 2020 Storing wool should be treated as an investment decision Check on your insurance if you plan to store wool on farm or in broker storage
74% – 78% of Australian wool is usually destined for China China domestically consume 55% – 60% of imported wool  

 

Solar Panel Investments (Jodie Pengel, Intern 2020)
An outline of the latest renewable energy legislation and schemes (rebates) available for solar power Analysis of potential return on investment of using solar Things to consider if you decide to install solar panels.

 

Oil and its relationship to grain prices (Don McTaggart, Grain Marketer, Albany)

Strong correlation between crude oil and grain futures doesn’t appear to translate to local prices.

Each Farmanco Facts edition includes:

WA Wool & Livestock Market Report and NSW / VIC Wool & Livestock Market Report.

Monthly Farmanco Facts editions are available to clients via this website or through the Farmanco App, on both iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Android devices. The Farmanco App is available (free) through both the Apple Store and Google Play.

New readers can subscribe to any Farmanco publication via this link View Shop.

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Categories : Agronomy News, Farm Management News, Farmanco Facts, Grain Marketing News, NEWS page images

Farmanco Facts May 2020

By Trish Nankivell
Monday, May 25th, 2020

Farmanco Facts – May 2020

May sees Ben Curtis, Management Consultant out of Esperance writing the Farmanco Facts Editorial (excerpt below):

Many farmers are feeling uncertain about the times ahead and what it means for them. Farmers usually take in their stride some very large economic decisions as they progress their businesses and move forward, but this is usually done with a backdrop of the environmental uncertainties that we are familiar with. COVID-19 has added a variable that we are still trying to understand.

Articles for May include the following:

Hybrid canola update & profit comparison: Mark Lawrence (Agronomist, Kojonup)
TT canola hybrids are currently out yielding glyphosate tolerant canola in NVT’s A delay in release of TruFlex® and Optimum® GLY made canola breeding direction hard Know your cost and break even yield of canola 
Review nutrition package when growing canola hybrids    

 

Wheat prices in a crisis: Greg Easton (Management Consultant, Mundaring)
During a world crisis the price of wheat is often volatile A world crisis does not necessarily equate to a period of high (or low) wheat prices A crisis doesn’t always correlate to rising or falling wheat prices
Wheat prices are driven by many and varied factors Drawing strong conclusions and correlations between a crisis and wheat prices is difficult Review, but continue with your sales and marketing strategy

 

Staying the course can pay off, abandoning the course can be costly: Samantha Hamilton (Key Choice Financial Solutions)
Severe market downturns feel anything but fair. In many ways the biggest risk facing investors now is the impulse to take action and make hasty, short-term decisions based on emotional factors; rather than accepting where we are today and riding things out. The loss of market value that seemingly evaporates overnight is deeply unsettling and challenging, even for committed, well-diversified long-term investors.

 

Fungicide resistance update: Blake O’Meagher (Agronomist & P.A. Specialist)
In 2019, the Centre for Crop and Disease Management (CCDM) launched the Barley Disease Cohort Project. An initiative to work in collaboration with growers to investigate and monitor the development of Barley Fungal Disease Resistance.

Each Farmanco Facts edition includes:

WA Wool & Livestock Market Report and NSW / VIC Wool & Livestock Market Report.

You can subscribe to any Farmanco publications via this link View Shop

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Categories : Agronomy News, Farm Management News, Farmanco Facts

Farmanco Facts – April 2020

By Trish Nankivell
Tuesday, April 21st, 2020

Farmanco Facts – April 2020

Keith Symondson (CEO) has written this month’s Editorial (see excerpt below):

News of COVID-19 dominates the headlines as well as most conversations and its likely to do so for many months. It is a difficult time for all of us and I hope you and your families are staying safe.

Given the rapidly changing situation, Farmanco has had to evolve how we work, think and how we continue to offer support and advice to all our clients. As you are probably aware, we closed all of our offices in March, and all our consultants are working from home.

Key points for April 2020 Farmanco Facts are:

Satellite Imagery: The Why, How and What can we use this for? By Blake O’Meagher  (Agronomist & P.A. Specialist)
Satellites for Precision Ag and Non-Precision Ag applications Using this information to build valuable paddock insights and information What are some of the service providers available and how do we best use these applications?
Automatic alerts and Normalised Difference Vegetative Index (NDVI) imaging uses    

 

Farmanco Facts: Client Survey Results, by Keith Symondson (CEO)
Design of Newsletter Content of Newsletter What are topics readers most interested in?
Additional feedback    

 

Ag Equipment Movement, by Stacey Bell (Farm Management Consultant)
All States have had changes regarding agricultural piloting Western Australia now has Public Holiday curfew periods National Guidelines now cover all states, except Western Australia

 

Keeping it in perspective – thoughts on investing, by David McCarthy (Bedbrook McCarthy Private Wealth Management)

 

Corona virus (COVID-19) and the impacts on Agriculture, by Ryan Duane (Grain Marketer)
Corona virus COVID-19 is already having a major impact on health and economies Agricultural markets are not immune, with lower demand not helpful for grain and oilseed prices Barley prices are especially exposed
COVID-19 is also impacting on the Australian Dollar The disease outbreak is an example of a Black Swan event  

Each Farmanco Facts edition includes the WA Wool & Livestock Market Report and NSW / VIC Wool & Livestock Market Report.

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Categories : Farmanco Facts

Video Conferencing during COVID-19

By Trish Nankivell
Friday, April 10th, 2020

Professional Development during Covid-19

Given COVID-19, Farmanco (like everyone) has had to evolve how we work and think and how we continue to offer support and advice to all our clients.

Farmanco closed all of our offices in March, with consultants working from home (we have since relaxed that with eased restrictions). Given that we operate over 11 offices and our consultants are spread out across regional WA and NSW, in many respects we’ve always operated as a ‘virtual company’. That is, much of our communication is over the phone and we meet altogether in person only a couple of times a year.

With the requirement to stay at home as much as possible, we are now used to using new communication technologies more extensively.  

Over April 2020, our agronomy and management teams had several days of professional development. This is always an opportunity for our teams to get together and share new techniques and developments, often bringing in external speakers to talk about new products and services. 

Of course, over Covid-19, we decided that meeting in-person was not a responsible course of action, and we looked at alternatives; even before the more stringent social distancing requirements were bought in.

For several years, we’ve used video conferencing for a lot of adhoc meetings, both within Farmanco and with partners in other states and other countries and we have used various platforms:  Zoom, Skype, TeamViewer, BlueJeans etc.

With the move to a phone system that lets us operate the business from anywhere, we now use Microsoft Teams for video conferencing and document collaboration.

Teams has worked well in smaller groups. However, 2020 has been the year to use it to connect the entire company; 31 people, including one of our Philippines developers and external presenters. Despite the fact that we had people on NBN, mobile, and satellite connections, it all worked surprisingly well.  

This year, we discussed how we could better support all our clients through the COVID-19 situation, and had external presenters talk to us about data protection and security, as well as looking at making improvements to Farmanco Facts.

After the ‘all of company’ meeting, teams were able to break off into smaller, separate ‘rooms’ for other discussions and talks from external contributors.

These team meetings were able to collaborate on a single document, and access external presenters, from both technology companies and chemical and fertiliser companies.

We probably got as much accomplished (if not more) during this ‘virtual PD’ than we normally achieve in-person. We were able to record most meetings. Therefore, if anyone missed out they can watch / listen at a later date.

The management team even managed an after-PD round of drinks!

While video collaboration and document-sharing technology doesn’t beat face-to-face meetings with our clients, after a short while you do forget about the tech.  

In the environment of COVID-19 and isolation, we now use video collaboration and document sharing technology with our clients, for one-on-one meetings – management reviews and agronomy plans.

While COVID-19 has forced us to do things differently, that hasn’t necessarily mean’t a step backward. The situation forced people to innovate. Farmanco will try to ensure we keep you and your businesses at the forefront.

If the choice is between hunkering down and just trying to get through this – or to innovate and try different things – Farmanco intends to be in the latter group!

Stay safe all! 

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Farmanco Facts – March 2020

By Trish Nankivell
Thursday, March 12th, 2020

Farmanco Facts – March 2020

The March edition sees Blake O’Meagher, Agronomist and Precision Ag Specialist, as Editor. Below is an excerpt from his editorial:

As a consultant, we are still relatively analytical in every situation we encounter, weighing up and analysing every situation with the information we are provided but inevitably, the ‘gut feel’ still plays an important role in each of these situations. Our collective experiences across broad interactions with growers and industry professionals provides us with a lot of ‘background’ experiences that will inevitably help contribute to our decision-making process, that is provided by both our analytical thinking and our gut feeling.

Key points for March 2020 Farmanco Facts include:

Pre-Emergent for Wheat, by Brent Pritchard
Luximax® – new Mode of Action (MOA) – Group Z for wheat ONLY Compares favourably to Sakura® with different MOA Great for resistance management
Crop safety measures a must, so follow label directions Labelled for knife point press wheel seeding systems only – no disc machines  

 

Machine Learning (ML) in Ag: Getting ready to change our world, by Keith Symondson
New technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning are set to revolutionise the way we work, and agriculture is at the forefront of a lot of this technology At the moment the technology is in its infancy, but there’s some interesting products that point the direction that this could take us Even if a piece of tech isn’t delivering on its current promise, it will and when technologies combine its likely that they will produce changes that will be far greater than we can currently predict

 

Farmanco Management Consultants Internship 2020 Program – meet the team, by Stacey Bell

 

Malt Barley Variety Update for 2020, by Mae Connelly
Malt variety rationalisation is an ongoing process Spartacus and Planet were the dominant malt varieties grown in WA in 2019/20 Latrobe and Bass are the varieties preferred by markets in 2020/21
Baudin now phased out…. Or is it? Latrobe and Spartacus are the segregations recommended by GIWA in most locations  

 

Each Farmanco Facts edition includes:

WA Wool & Livestock Market Report and NSW / VIC Wool & Livestock Market Report prepared by Richard Brake, Management Consultant.

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Categories : Agronomy News, Farm Management News

Farmanco Interns 2020 – Bronson Gledhill

By Trish Nankivell
Thursday, March 5th, 2020

Farmanco Internship 2020 – Bronson Gledhill

Since starting with Farmanco, our interns have worked on a variety of tasks within the company, as well as assisting consultants with client work and attending review meetings, to get a real feel for what it is that our Management Consultants do. 

Bronson has just finished the second year of his three-year Bachelor of Agribusiness course at Curtin University. He currently lives in Perth, but prior to starting high school he grew up in Manjimup, WA. Before joining Farmanco, Bronson worked in a variety of seasonal roles to fit his university schedule. Bronson is assisting Greg Easton this review season, as well as helping Richard Brake with some of the background work on the Farmanco Analyser Platform (benchmarking portal).

Our three interns have set up Twitter accounts and are encouraged to provide a blow-by-blow account of their time as part of the Farmanco Internship program. 

The intern program is a great opportunity for university students interested in Management Consultancy as a career, to experience firsthand what the job entails. It’s likely that Farmanco will extend this program to our other teams over time.

Bronson Gledhill, in his own words HERE.

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Categories : About Farmanco, Staff Profile photos

Farmanco Interns 2020 – Georgie Sanchez

By Trish Nankivell
Monday, March 2nd, 2020

Farmanco Internship 2020 – Georgie Sanchez

Farmanco decided to employ a team of interns to support our farm management team and their clients through the 2020 review season. This offers an opportunity to young ag graduates to work alongside our farm consultants during their busiest time of year, and at the same time gain some real-world consultancy experience.

Georgie is currently completing her Master of Science in Agriculture with the University of New England and is based at Pingrup, WA. She worked in a variety of agricultural operations prior to starting with Farmanco. Georgie is assisting Laurence Carslake during this review season, as well as working with Rob Sands and completing other internal Farmanco tasks.

Our three interns have set up Twitter accounts and are encouraged to provide a blow-by-blow account of their time as part of the Farmanco Internship program. 

Farmanco is dedicated to supporting them during this journey and as such have assigned each intern a mentor within the company as well as completing monthly review meetings with the CEO and their mentor to give them the proper channels for feedback. We will run the Farmanco Internship program every year, with applications requested from September onward. It is open to all second and third-year students in an ag-related discipline.

Georgie Sanchez, in her own words HERE.

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