NEW BENCHMARKING tools will aim to improve farm profitability by allowing farmers to compare their performance against other businesses in the sector.

The 'Whole Farm Benchmarks' and 'Enterprise Gross Margins' tools, are published on the Farm Advisory Service website, and will allow farmers to cross reference their businesses against all main farm types found in Scotland, and allow them to identify opportunities for improvement.

Principal consultant at SAC Consulting, Kev Bevan, said: “Looking for opportunities to lift profitability has never been more important given the uncertainties created by Covid-19 and Brexit, but any search depends on knowing how well your farm is currently performing.

“The latest whole farm and enterprise costings from the Scottish Farm Business Survey for 2018/19 have been created to help you check your performance and are available in a user-friendly form on the FAS website,” he explained.

While gross margins are useful tools for improving farm performance, farmers are also advised to establish ‘current performance’ based on several years, in order to allow for factors such as the weather in a particular year.

For more information visit: www.fas.scot