3 Nov 2021
Farm vets key to spreading the word of Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board’s new Farm Business Review service, which can help up to 4,000 farmers across England.
Paul Imrie
Job Title
IMAGE: Syda Productions / Adobe Stock
Farm vets are being urged to publicise a new service to help their clients cope with changes to the Basic Payments Scheme (BPS) and to future-proof their businesses.
The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) has secured funding from Defra through the Future Farming Resilience Fund to help 4,000 farmers and growers in England until February 2022.
Described as independent and impartial, the Farm Business Review service offers a combination of online self-assessment tools, advice and peer support to help farm businesses as they prepare for what is billed as the “biggest agricultural policy shift in a generation”.
Designed for dairy, beef, sheep, and cereals and oilseeds farmers, the tool includes a BPS impact calculator, business resilience assessment and a key performance indicator calculator to help farms see how well they are performing.
To help interpret individual farm results, a half-day of support with a consultant is available to each participating farmer, where action plan and next steps will be agreed.
Based on the review service’s results, those with the greatest need will be offered additional support and bespoke advice, including with benchmarking, business planning and conducting a carbon audit.
More about the service is available at the scheme-specific website and farmers can be encouraged to sign up via this link.
