EverFarm: Piloting a strategic decision making process to improve grazing farm systems

A pilot of the EverFarm process was undertaken in early 2011 to test the application of EverGraze principles on a case farm at Holbrook in southern NSW. Geographically relevant, strategic options to improve the farms grazing system were derived from facilitated discussions involving an expert panel of farmers, agricultural professionals and the case farmer. The panel met three times. The first time the panel met they heard the goals of the case farmer before inspecting the case farm. Using a structured process based on EverGraze principles, they identified constraints of the case farms phalaris based system and then prioritised strategic options for further investigation using a SWOT analysis. The second time the panel met they discussed the potential impacts on labour, operator stress, capital, risk, NRM and lifestyle, before setting parameters for modelling. The key strategic options for the case farm included increasing the area of lucerne, shifting the time of lambing and investigating alternate feed sources. Before the third meeting modelling was conducted to test the long-term productivity and profitability of these options. At the third meeting, the panel found that increasing stocking rate, sowing 26% of the farm area to lucerne, and an earlier lambing was likely to increase profitability on this case farm and minimise supplementary feeding when compared to the planned 100% phalaris system. The non-monetary impact of these options was considered to be minor, though further improvements to the modelling would be needed to build confidence in these outcomes. Analysis of system impacts of alternate feed sources was also limited due to modelling constraints. Ongoing
feedback from the panel highlighted the advantages of developing rich environments for higher order systems discussions, and suggested improvements to the EverFarm process.