Lee Matheson
Rotorua based farm consultant Lee Matheson helps farmers deal with the numbers.
One of the tools he uses is DairyBase which enables Lee’s clients to make comparisons against other businesses and against themselves over time.
DairyBase provides farmers with key performance indicator information that can be used to monitor the farm’s progress. These include operating profit/ ha, return on equity, discretionary cash, farm working expense /kgMS and operating return on dairy assets.
These KPIs provide an objective view according to Lee.
“The beauty of DairyBase is the fact it provides standardisation which allows for a fair comparison between businesses. There is far less chance to misrepresent anything,” says Lee.
At Perrin Ag, Lee provides one-on-one agribusiness consultancy to both dairy and drystock farmers specializing in financial analysis, whole farm systems modelling and nutrient management.
The Rotorua based consultant uses DairyBase for external benchmarking purposes.
“I use all those same key performance indicators, calculated the same way, across all my dairy clients, even those not yet in DairyBase,” he says.
“This can be useful if DairyBase data is mentioned in a discussion group or an article as farmers can compare this to their own information, knowing that it has been calculated in the same way,”
Lee has helped his clients compare themselves to top performers in the industry.
He has benchmarked farms operated by Maori economic authorities against finalists in the Ahuwhenua Trophy – Maori Excellence in Farming Awards.
“We can benchmark farms quite successfully against, say the last two years, of finalists for the Ahuwhenua Awards because the entrants are required to use DairyBase and that information is then published,” says Lee.
The web based database also allows farmers to compare their business against themselves over time.
“That’s been absolutely fantastic in terms of being able to demonstrate progression through the business,” says Lee.
Lee says the more people on DairyBase the more powerful it will become.
“If everybody did it, it would be fantastic and it would be a super powerful tool,” he says.