The Power of Accurate Farm Benchmarking

It feels like harvest only ended yesterday. Now, September is almost behind us too.  

The gap between harvest and drilling is an important, but very narrow, junction. As well as trying to catch up on sleep after a manic harvest, you’re making big strides into the upcoming year.  

It’s the time for assessing farm performance and setting the tone for next season.  

You’ve already made your varietal and rotational decisions – but how’re you going to know they’ve worked? Or improve upon them next year?  
 
I’d argue the answer is accurate farm benchmarking, only using accurate and verified data to ensure the best results, which is what I’m going to discuss in this article. 

Why Benchmark My Farm? 

When we spoke to our farming customer Graham Innes, he said “If we didn’t have this information then we’d effectively be making blind decisions...”  
 
That’s why I often describe the YAGRO Platform as a decision-making tool. It’s about bringing every corner of your operation into the light, making sure your decisions are all properly informed.  

Using your pre-existing farm records/data to drive these decisions is the best route forwards.  
 
But the only way to justify and effectively weigh your decisions is by benchmarking the impact they had on your operation.  
 
You can benchmark your whole-farm performance, or at the individual field, crop or variety level – depending on the decision you’re aiming to support. You can benchmark against your own farm’s past performance, or against the wider market for context.  

Key Metrics for Benchmarking 

To gain the quickest picture of your overall operation you’ll likely compare yields, costs of production and gross margin. These are the bottom-line indicators of your farm performance.  
 
As farm data experts, we’ve built this ability centrally into the YAGRO platform, so it couldn’t be easier for you to benchmark performance with minimal manual entry.  

The most important factor is knowing the data you’re using to make decisions (your own data) is clean, structured and verified. That’s the service and security we provide, as the UK’s trusted farm data experts. 

Using YAGRO is the most accurate way to conduct essential benchmarking, as our robust data ingestion engine and data analysis process provides the cleanest, and most accurate results.  

So, forget pub talk! Deal with real facts and figures. 

Challenges and How to Overcome Them 

A big part of my day-to-day at YAGRO is speaking to farmers and learning if their farm data is working as hard as they do. Each farm will be different, but to stay ahead and drive real efficiency, you must have access to verified data - and know what to do with it.  
 
So, the first challenge to overcome is visibility. Our Data Team work hard to get new farms onto the YAGRO platform swiftly so users can begin analysing their accurate, verified data as fast as possible and gain a clearer picture of their operation.  

The detail you’ll receive just from benchmarking your farm to its own historic performance may surprise you (our Data Team are able to upload up to 5 years of historic data, and our platform conducts the analysis for you). 

Once you’re up and running, the YAGRO platform can help you achieve growth, maximise efficiency, reduce risk or simply increase your knowledge base.   
 
Amongst the many features of the YAGRO platform, you’ll find benchmarking front and centre, and it’s up to you whether you keep this to yourself or if you’re willing to take part in larger benchmarking exercises featuring more aggregated data. 

Don’t Let This Season Escape You: Act Now 

My colleague Charlie published our last blog all about real-time data and encouraging farmers to begin this new season with a data-led mindset.  

Tracking your in-season progress is a rewarding process for optimising costs and decisions... But it’s the data which will enable you to benchmark for success as the seasons move on.  

We’re experts at turning your pre-existing farm records into something actionable and valuable for your farming business. Now is the perfect time to book a free demo with me so I can walk you through the solutions available.