The recent release of the 2023 national vegetable and onion benchmarks has highlighted the vast range of operating profit margins between the more profitable businesses ($22,900 $/ha), the average ($2,906/ha) and the least profitable (-$16,000/ha). You have to ask,...

I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of drought and flooding rains. I love her far horizons, I love her jewel-sea, Her beauty and her terror – The wide brown land for me! So many words in this stanza of the poem ring true. A...

As part of celebrating the 50th year of Planfarm, we recently caught up with a previous employee, Peter Scott who started Planfarm in 2006. Here is a reflection of his time with Planfarm. My Planfarm career – Peter Scott, Grain Marketing Advisor I was diligently...

Carbon farming has burst onto the scene of late, you’re hard pressed to attend a conference or field day without it taking centre stage. This is fuelled a by the global imperative to slow the rise of atmospheric temperatures and bring the world towards ‘net-zero’...

Farm businesses continue to grow in scale and complexity. Once machine capacity has been exhausted, increased capacity comes via the duplication or scalability of that capacity. With this duplication, in-turn, comes the requirement to engage more people, and with this...

I always have reservations writing Landline articles on Grain Markets, given how quickly things can change and how half reasonable advice can look quite poor once it has been distributed to an audience. However, I will do so today (22nd May) and will see how things...

Our farm started seeding this year with two Canadian backpackers on our team. Three weeks later, they’d left – gone to work in Kalgoorlie. We were left feeling let down, disappointed, and overwhelmed with the work that remained. Control what you can control But we...

For horticultural businesses in Australia, one of the most significant decisions is deciding what scale to operate at, as the size of your business can have a significant influence on your profitability, efficiency, and ability to meet demand for your product. Whilst...

2023 was a cracking drought in many parts, thanks captain obvious!   Figure 1. Total rainfall since the end of 2022 t (Red Line) at Carnamah, compared to previous 18-month periods (Blue Lines). It’s not always fun to set new records! Source: Climateapp.net....

On the 28th of July, 2007, when I was working with the Ag Dept, I set out with Steve Davies and others to put in three mouldboard plough plus lime trials on some sandy soil at Mingenew. I can remember the date because it was a drought year and we needed to wait until...

First and foremost, let’s recognise the human element here. While it is easy to outline some strategies to best manage late breaks from a keyboard and office, I fully recognise the debilitating process of seeing high workloads, compromised lamb survival, expensive...

Let’s say that you’re a grower, and you have just spent 3 months of your season caring for and growing a first-grade line of cabbages. Once picked and packed, you approach a buyer and negotiate a price and 30-day terms. Produce is sent off to the buyer with an...