The top five areas of interest are animal performance, financial management, business planning, feed management and pasture management.
Red Meat Profit Partnership (RMPP) chairman Malcolm Bailey said while he is pleased with the level of interest it was an ambitious goal of having 350 groups involving 3000 farmers operating.
The RMPP is part of the Primary Growth Partnership, for which funding will end in 2020 when the seven-year programme ends, but Bailey hopes farmers will see sufficient merit for them to continue.
“It is a step change we are looking for not just a one-hit gain in performance and we get an improvement and then regress.”
The RMPP is a seven-year initiative to improve the flow of information between farmers and experts to grow farm profitability and productivity.
Each group consists of seven to nine farmers and each farm business contributes $800 and is eligible for a $4000 kick-start, which is pooled and paid on declaration of invoices to employ a facilitator and experts.
The RMPP provides training for facilitators who, like consultants employed by the programme, have a range of experience and backgrounds.
Asked whether $4000 a farm is adequate, Bailey said it needs to be at a level to encourage farmers to be involved and see the potential gains.
“I think the ball is in farmers’ court because this is about farmers changing things that are under their control for better profit.”
The NZ Institute of Economic Research has been commissioned to measure the performance of the programme, specifically to see if productivity gains exceed existing on-farm improvements of about 2% a year.
Other RMPP initiatives it commissioned or contributed to are electronic statutory declaration forms, the farm assurance programme, Taste Pure Nature, farm teaching resources in schools and the Agri Women’s Development Trust, a training programme that has attracted 2800 women to its courses.
