Joint Ventures – and how they help farmers to reduce costs – are making headlines this winter. There’s a new crop of articles advocating a deep, long examination of the options for businesses.

Thoughts into action

For too many farmers the number crunching is uncomfortable.However for JVFG member Jamie Symington – of L Symington Farms, near Kings Lynn – the news is all good.

Jamie Symington, JVFG member

JVFG member Jamie Symington is pleased that his costs of production are falling.

He is in the enviable position of being able to measure the results of his decisions a year ago to improve profitability. “Our costs are much better than they were. I can see them coming down which is good and absolutely what I wanted to achieve.”

Cultivations: less is more

“One of the first things was getting rid of one of our crawlers, something we should have done before. We realised we had to reduce the amount of cultivations we did. And that had to mean getting rid of equipment.
If you want to stop eating chocolate biscuits then don’t have chocolate biscuits in the tin waiting for you to eat them!
In the past we were doing too much cosmetic cultivation – I suppose to make it look pretty – but not necessarily earning us any more money. Through these JVFG meetings we have the knowledge and confidence to stop that.
In the past we feared that if we left out too much cultivation then that could cost us highly in lost yield so we over cultivated, just in case. Now we know just what we need to do – probably still erring on doing a little too much but we can do it, know the cost – for £5/hectare – and know it’s affordable investment.”

Against the flow

Looking deep within his business does not mean that Jamie Symington does not have an eye on the bigger picture and what he sees as serious problems – for both land and business. “Within JVFG we’ve talked about the dangers in rents that are too high for short term contracts. They are simply not sustainable.
At the moment there are too many people paying far too much money for renting land. You can either compete with them and bid silly money yourself or you have to find something else to do to spread your costs of production – such as a Joint Venture – and that’s the challenge.
With a long term vision, landlords would not want short term contracts because in such short, expensive agreements the land is likely to be abused. But too many landlords lack that long term view and seem shortsighted, as do a lot of agents working for them. There’s no long term view at all for too many at the moment, sadly.”

Growing interest in JVFG for best benchmarking

In such challenging times it is heartening for JVFG members to be with fellow farmers and businesses that are planning positively – and for the long term as well as the here and now. “Our meetings are even better than ever.” says Jamie.
“It’s great we’ve got more and more members coming in and putting their numbers into the system for analysis. And I think the new HGCA benchmarking and monitor farms  are also helping more of this country’s progressive farmers to find us and JVFG.
“I think also while costs and commodity prices are where they are then costs are in sharper focus. Who would not want to know how to reduce costs by £10 a tonne?
There’s lots to say and lots to learn – and always plenty to put into practice.”