USING ‘big data’ along with benchmarking is becoming increasingly important for arable farmers’ margins. Crop performance plus use of web-based systems to identify farming practices that deliver genuine benefits, are allowing arable farms to face up to grain price volatility, uncertainty over farming support and increasing technical challenges, according to agronomy firm, ProCam. “Without proper benchmarking of yields and margins against the bestperforming crops in the country, growers don’t have a reference point as to what is achievable,” said ProCam managing director, John Bianchi. “And without broad acre knowledge of how different crops and agronomic techniques perform, it is extremely difficult to identify which should be employed on your own farm. Benchmarking and big data help better inform year-toyear and day-to-day agronomy decisions,” he argued. Pointing to results of ProCam’s own 4Cast benchmarking database, which has 17 years of data and has just had latest results from the 2016 harvest added, Mr Bianchi said it confirmed the large gap between typical and the top 25% of crops. Average winter wheat yields on 4Cast have consistently tracked above the UK Defra average over the last 17 years, he said, but 4Cast growers in the top 25% averaged substantially higher still – at more than 2 t/ha above the UK Defra-sourced average. ProCam’s technical director, Dr Tudor Dawkins, and head of crop production, Nick Myers, added that the latest harvest 2016 results show the top 25% of winter wheat growers on 4Cast spent less per ha on variable costs than the average, yet achieved higher yields and around £200/ha higher gross margin. “There was little difference in the split between the types of sprays the top 25% used,” says Mr Myers. “However, with their higher yields, their costs per tonne spent on seed, fertiliser and sprays were all lower.”