The new farmlets features in FARMAX 8.1 help farmers better account for the true economic performance of each farmlet by enabling buy/sell interactions between farmlets.

Farmlets allow FARMAX Red Meat users to better understand and forecast the performance (physical, financial and environmental) of each area of the farm. For example, an intensive bull finishing block can have a separate feed budget from an extensive hill block on the same farm.

With the improvements in FARMAX 8.1, you will be better able to account for the true economic performance of each farmlet. For example, supplementary feed grown on the hill block and then fed in the bull unit will now be reported as follows:

• Hill block has a cost to grow and/or harvest feed

• Hill block has a source of income from ‘selling’ feed to another farmlet

• Bull unit has a cost for ‘purchasing’ feed from another farmlet

“I find the farmlets really useful to gain a more in-depth understanding of how different blocks on a farm are operating,” says Steven Howarth, agribusiness consultant for AgFirst Waikato.

“Armed with this info we can then play to the strengths of each block, mapping out a plan to take performance to the next level.”