Over 300 farmers from the dairy cooperative Arla have joined a new scheme which aims to modernise their businesses through data, in order to increase the efficiency and profitability of their operations in the face of volatile milk price changes.
Arla’s R500 Resilience programme has been influenced by evidence gathered from Arla farms which suggests that on-farm profitability can be increased when farmers have easy access to data which allows them to effectively adapt to market changes.
The programme will see Arla farmers collaborate through a knowledge sharing platform which utilises a scorecard system, which assesses factors such as leadership, people skills, strategic ability and attitude to change and highlight where efficiency can be improved.
Farmers will be issued a score out of 500 depending on how efficiently their business is run, and Arla claims this metric will allow its farmers to increase their resilience to volatility in the dairy industry in both the long and short term.
Graham Wilkinson, senior director of member relations, Arla Foods UK said: “Market volatility is inevitable in our industry. At Arla, our Good Growth strategic focus to drive our brands is mitigating against some of this impact as will our Calcium programme, but we’ve also seen that where our owners take a more holistic approach to their businesses they are better able to adjust.
“R500 equips farmers with the tools and peer support to enable this.
“The industry is still adjusting to the removal of EU milk quotas, and this, on top of volatile global milk prices and Brexit uncertainty means farmers tend to sit in one of two camps; successful at capitalising when times were good or successful at planning for and mitigating against risk.
“At Arla, we’ve found that farmers who are able to adapt more easily between these two approaches are more sustainable.
“Taking the time to assess strengths and weaknesses, working with other farmers to gain insight, ideas and new perspectives and measuring change and success is key to being fit to compete in an age of increasing European and global volatility.”
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