recently and professionally valued. Banks will be reluctant to extend new loans to farm businesses that have too much debt relative to the value of the land and buildings. The amount of loan debt as a percentage of land value that banks require to support lending varies, but typically ranges between 60 and 70%. In summary, it is really important to find a balance for farm debt,


a balance that supports the farm in meeting its needs and exploiting opportunities whilst not overwhelming it with worry and placing it in an insecure position with respect to future threats and opportunities. A first step toward achieving balance is to establish the current debt position with confidence, followed up with a plan to re-balance the debt position if necessary. This often involves looking for opportunities to improve farm performance. Establishing cost of production and benchmarking against similar farms is an important tool for identifying improvement opportunities. Gross margin budgeting is another useful tool that allows you to understand your enterprises better and carry out “what-if” scenario planning to understand the impact of improvements or changes.


MCI AND DAIRY EMISSIONS The announcement by Arla to incentivise sustainability provides financial motivation to reduce dairy emissions which could in time be worth up to 2.6ppl, with payments starting from 1st August 2023. The ‘Arla Sustainability Incentive Model’ is a points-based system which will pay 0.03 eurocent/kg milk with up to 100 points available from a range of activities which include feed efficiency, land & fertiliser use, protein efficiency, animal robustness, feed monitoring, soy use, biodiversity & carbon farming, manure handling and renewable electricity. From our recent Net Zero fellowship with The Trehane Trust we


found that emissions reduction was also consistent with increased business profit. Every dairy business will need to get a better understanding about their current emissions and the opportunities for cost effective reductions. As usual the problem is having the data available to easily calculate emissions from a farm. Our dairy herd management and costings system MCi already allows a dairy farm to record all the data needed for emissions analysis from routine monthly data: Livestock numbers imported from CTS


•


• Feed • Fertiliser • Electricity •


Fuel (farm and contractor) To improve the quality of data provided, farmers are encouraged


to ask their feed suppliers (straights and compounds) for the Carbon Footprint (kg CO2eq/tonne) including Land Use Change), including delivery to farm for the products they are supplying. As part of an Innovate UK REMEDY project working in conjunction


with QMMS and Nottingham University we are currently testing a new module in MCi which calculates the carbon footprint from data recorded on MCi for any time period, which also allows for data collection through the MCi APP. The advantage of using MCi is the ability to report on the physical


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actual data for any time period, so that the data can be used for any emissions model. As part of the REMEDY project the emissions data will then allow ‘what if’ modelling to look at different scenarios for the dairy business including changes in feed use and animal performance. All the data recording is available now on MCi which will allow the emissions model to be generated.


THE UK flavour manufacturer supporting British & Irish agriculture


Unlock the possibilities


To find out more about our unique Tastetite and other feed enhancement technologies visit our website at www.inroadsintl.com email info@inroadsintl.co.uk or call us on +44 (0) 1939 236 555.


FEED COMPOUNDER JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2023 PAGE 15


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