If they don’t grow their own feed, Molenhuis notes that pork farmers can also use the commodity markets and hedging strategies to book their feed needs in advance when there are advantageous pricing opportunities. Other enterprises on the farm are not always strictly analysed in terms of financial benefit for the main pig operation but in terms of the complementary benefits they provide. For exam- ple, Molenhuis reports what he heard during the COP session at the recent ‘London Swine Conference’ in London, Ontario where one panelist explained to the group that the primary value of his trucking enterprise was not profit but to provide biosecurity benefits to protect the health of his herd. In addition, Molenhuis notes that having other enterprises on a pig farm may also help with labour productivity by using la- bour more efficiently across more tasks. “But farmers will al- ways need to be making that assessment of whether it is bet- ter for them to do it themselves [with their own employees],” he says, “or purchase/hire these inputs or services.”
Benchmarking based on past performance For large long-term decisions, it’s also important to bench- mark the farm’s own yearly averages for costs and revenues relative to its past performance. Molenhuis says looking at an average of three to five years provides a decent indication of farm performance. However, analysis of long-term invest- ment feasibility, he says, should also take into account new technologies that will improve production, reduce energy use, increase labour productivity, and so on. PigChamp Canada business development manager John Wiebe adds that because training and educating farm staff are also important parts of farm management, sharing benchmark data with workers can allow teams to work
together to set performance goals. PigChamp Canada invites its customers four times a year to take part in the firm’s free benchmarking programme which has been in place for sever- al decades, with the software being adapted over time. OMAFRA has also partnered with ‘agribenchmark,’ an interna- tional farm comparison organisation based in Germany which produces benchmarking data, so that farmers and industry experts can learn more about international competitiveness. Molenhuis says that farming organisations or government agencies in 18 countries are providing financial and produc- tion data for swine from typical farms. OMAFRA’s Ontario data is the only data being submitted from Canada at this time.
More Canadian benchmarking in the works As publicly-available benchmarks are hard to find for most commodities in Ontario, OMAFRA is now working with the ‘Ontario Farm Income Database’ to generate farm financial performance measures using farm tax and insurance data. The reporting and benchmarking structures used are based on those created by AgriFood Management Excellence, ex- plains Molenhuis (see also the white paper on its ‘Standardized Financial Reporting and Benchmarking’ approach on its web- site). He further indicates that results for swine farrow-to- finish and nine other Ontario farm types will be posted to the OMAFRA website this autumn. Alberta Pork, the pork industry association in that province, had conducted a COP study from 2012 to 2014 for Alberta pork producers and will be starting a new three-year bench- marking project in 2020. Executive director Darcy Fitzgerald says the project will include COP, revenues and market indica- tors, and that some ‘big-picture’ items will be shared with swine organisations in other provinces.
▶PIG PROGRESS | Volume 35, No. 9, 2019 25
Benchmarking starts with knowing exactly what is going on inside the pig houses.
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