Farm Management Studies
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Item Meal based pig production - Canterbury survey 1967-1969(Lincoln College. Department of Farm Management and Rural Valuation, 1970) Kingma, O. T.; Ryan, O. P.With large sums of capital invested in fattening and breeding facilities, coupled with the uncertainty of pigmeat prices, the survey has confirmed that the modern pig farmer must maintain high levels of efficiency. The key factors to profitability are:- 1. Pigs produced per sow per year. This will depend both on the number raised per litter and the number of litters per sow per year. These are largely factors of management – ensuring sows are mated at the correct time, providing optimum farrowing facilities and keeping sow and piglet health at a high level. 2. Quantity of food for breeding stock. The amount of food will influence both the type and number of weaners. Analysis of the survey results shows that higher meal supplementation alone will increase the number of piglets per litter. The cost of this though may not be justified in itself and improved sow management may give a greater financial return. Individual sow feeders will decrease the use of meal by controlling sow intake to her requirement yet will not decrease efficiency. The decrease in meal cost can be quite significant and hence will reduce the direct cost of the weaner. 3. Efficiency of fattening stock. The type of weaner produced by the breeding herd has the largest bearing on the efficiency of food conversion and rate of growth in the fattening herd. Although the effect of housing and disease is not so great (except in the extremes) they can also increase the profitability of the unit quite substantially especially when the food cost is so high. 4. Cost of food. A comparison of extensive and intensive systems is outside the scope of this survey and indeed difficult at any time especially when one involves appreciating capital and the other depreciating capital. The farmer who has the lower cost structure and maintains stock performance can best cope with the unstable market. This does not mean that increased performance associated with a higher feed cost is not justified economically. Profits in pig production depend very much on efficiency levels. Farmers should keep records of stock performance and feed costs. They are simple to record and will at least provide some guide to assess efficiency.Item Intensive beef production on irrigated lucerne : a systems modelling study(Lincoln College. Department of Farm Management and Rural Valuation., 1973-10) Wright, A.; Vallance, R.; Nicol, A. M.This bulletin reports on the first stage of a project initiated at Lincoln College in 1971, to study the feasibility of intensive beef production based on irrigated lucerne. As such it is a problem in the design and evaluation of a new farming system. The first stage of the project involved developing a computer model to study the proposed system, and to provide guidelines for the establishment of an actual field trial. The second stage of the project will be concerned with the establishment and operation of the real system. The work to date has been primarily designed to provide information - for research workers rather than potential commercial operators. Thus, while the physical and financial results presented here may be of considerable general interest, it must be remembered that they are derived from a mathematical model - not from a real system. In time these theoretical results will be supplemented by results from the field trial, and it will then be possible to give more informed advice to farmers contemplating adoption of the system. A primary objective in presenting this report is to illustrate the role that a systems modelling exercise can play in making initial decisions on the design of field experiments. As far as the authors are aware this project is the first in New Zealand to follow the "systems research approach" to the study of a new farming system.Item Farm machinery syndicates(Lincoln College. Department of Farm Management and Rural Valuation., 1972) Hagen, E. L.Current economic conditions are forcing a number of farmers to re-appraise their programmes of machinery replacement. Historically plant has been a significant component of Total Farm Capital on many New Zealand farms, particularly those involved with cropping. Recent substantial increases in the purchasing price of all items of farm machinery have meant that normal depreciation reserves are no longer capable of financing the replacement of major items of plant. The small farmer particularly is faced with this problem, and due to low usage rates and consequent high overhead costs, many large items of agricultural equipment are beyond his resources. In addition, wage inflation has encouraged the substitution of capital for labour. An existing alternative to the purchase of machinery is the use of contract services, but farmers find this a costly alternative for some types of operation. Additionally where timeliness is important, they may be reluctant to rely heavily on outside operators. A second alternative which is gaining popularity overseas is machinery syndication. Where the purchase and sole use of a large machine is clearly uneconomic for individuals a group of farmers combining to purchase the same machine may derive the benefit of a new and technologically advanced machine at acceptable costs.Item The management of Christchurch milk supply farms(Lincoln College, 1970) Nuthall, PeterThe number of town milk producing farms in the Christchurch region is relatively small compared with other classes of farms. It is partly for this reason that a comprehensive farm management study of town milk dairy farming has not been carried out in the past. Work presented in this bulletin attempts to make a contribution towards meeting this gap. It is based on research carried out during the period 1965-67, part of which involved an analysis of the profitability of different management systems on a particular farm. It is this section, together with supporting information, that is presented. The farm chosen was carefully selected so that it would have similar attributes to as many other farms as possible, the selection being based on information obtained from a postal survey sent to all town milk producers in 1965. The bulletin consists of six sections. The first section defines the area in which milk is produced and discusses its soils and climate. In section two the major management decisions which must be made by a town supply farmer are discussed and some of the factors which should influence these decisions are outlined. In section three descriptive information obtained about farms in the area from the postal survey and the method used in selecting the case farm from this information is presented. In section four the method used to determine the optimum management systems for the case farm is briefly discussed while in section five the results of this analysis are given. Finally a summary of recommendations is given in section six. In order to widen the applicability of the results the analysis compared management systems for different quota levels. No claim can be made that the results can be directly applied to other farms. The most that can be claimed is that the method of selecting the case-form gives some confidence in making recommendations based on these results. Over four years have elapsed since the postal survey was conducted. In the interim some of the statistics used in selecting the case farm will have changed but it is believed that these changes will not have significantly affected the results. Statistics such as the area of farms and the number of labour units employed do not change much where a large number of farms is considered. Similarly, as the prices and costs existing at the end of 1967 were used in the analysis some of the optimum plans could change slightly if the analysis was based on current prices. In the original analysis the effect of price changes was explored and this indicated that the optimum management systems determined were quite stable in relation to price variations. It is therefore considered that the major conclusion of this analysis apply. Minor changes considered possible are outlined in the results section.