A Farm Business Plan – What is it? Do I need one?

“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” This is a quote from Dwight D Eisenhower who was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe in WWII and also the 34th President of the United States. What he as saying is that a plan is a guide that can often change in the heat of battle, but because there is a plan it means different risks and scenarios have been thought through, you know what your resources, risks and goals are and having thought all this through you now have a foundation or base level that sets out your direction and you can use and adapt this when things change. In the case of a Farm Business Plan, it is also an excellent document to have when communicating within your business and to external parties such as advisers and financiers.

My guest this month is Jess Bell, Senior Project Officer with NSW DPIRD’s Farm Business Resilience Program who has co-authored a book called Farm Business Planning which has been published by Tocal College and is also available online. We discuss the importance of a Farm Business Plan, when you should develop one, who should do it, what it contains, why you should have one and how it can be used, as well as providing you with lots of resources to help you through the process and set your business up for future success.

Useful resources related to this podcast:

·       Order your “Farm Business Planning” book and access free templates

·       Dairy Standard Chart of Accounts

·       Dairy Cash Budgeting Tool | Dairy Australia

·       Farm Business Resilience Program

This podcast is an initiative of the NSW DPI Dairy Business Advisory Unit – further information and resources are available here - Dairy | Department of Primary Industries

It is brought to you in partnership the Hunter Local Land Services

Please share this podcast with your fellow farmers and colleagues and feel free to contact us with suggestions or comments via this email address thebusinessofdairy@gmail.com

Further NSW DPI Dairy channels to follow and subscribe to include:

NSW DPI Dairy Facebook page

NSW DPI Dairy Newsletter - Connect with us | Department of Primary Industries 

Transcript here

Produced by Liam Driver

The information discussed in this podcast are for informative and educational purposes only and do not constitute advice. 

Transcript

The Business of Dairy

Episode #54 Transcript –“A farm Business Plan – What is it and do I need one?” 

Sheena Carter: Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. This is a quote from Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe in World War II, and also the 34th President of the United States. What he is saying is that a plan is a guide that can often change in the heat of battle. But because there is a plan, it means different risks and scenarios have been thought through. You know what your resources, risks and goals are, and having thought all this through, you now have a foundation or base level that sets out your direction and you can use and adapt this when things change. In the case of a farm business plan, it is also an excellent document to have when communicating within your business and to external parties such as advisors and financiers. My guest this month is Jess Bell, Senior Project Officer with New South Wales Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development's Farm Business Resilience Program, who has co-authored a book called Farm Business Planning, which has been published by Tocal College. We discuss the importance of a farm business plan, when you should develop one, who should do it, what it contains, why you should have one, and how it can be used, as well as providing you with lots of resources to help you through the process and set your business up for future success.

Sheena Carter: Welcome to the Business of Dairy podcast, Jess. It's great to have you as my guest today and you will be well known by a number of people in the New South Wales dairy industry particularly, but could you give just a bit of an introduction about yourself, your role and your background, particularly within the dairy industry?

Jess Bell: Thanks, Sheena. Thanks for having me on the podcast. Yes, I probably do sound familiar to some of the New South Wales producers. My family dairied in the Southern Highlands for a long time. We did the traditional come out from Ireland and established ourselves in East Kangaloon and I was actually the seventh generation to work within our family dairy business which was very special. I then migrated a little bit south to Wagga where I did my bachelor of ag science degree and after that I took a role with a dairy processing company. I did a few years as a field service officer and a few years as a raw milk quality assurance manager. I covered New South Wales and Tassie, which was a great eye opener, the difference in production systems and climates and everything that goes along with dairying in those two regions. So in 2018, I was fortunate enough to join Kerry Kempton, Nico Lyons and Pete Havrlant and Juan in the DPIRD dairy unit. I was a project officer for the Milking Edge, which was an automatic milking systems project looking at how we can incorporate robotic milking technology into pasture operations here in Australia. That was awesome. I loved my time in that project. My time with DPIRD has always been shorter contracts. So I've got to move around a little bit, which has been great exposure to different areas of the department and different focuses on projects. I did a little hiatus over with the Young Farm Business Program and then the Storm and Flood Industry Recovery Program allowed the dairy unit some additional funding. So I came back to the dairy unit for a couple of years and worked closely with Dairy New South Wales on some of those projects funded under the Storm and Flood Program. Now since June 2014, I've been with the Farm Business Resilience Program. Which is a joint initiative of the federal government and New South Wales government and focuses on preparedness and preparation for all industries in New South Wales, agricultural industries in New South Wales, help them prepare for flood, drought, adverse events within their businesses.

Sheena Carter: Excellent. I always say about people in the dairy industry that it's a small industry and it's a very well-connected industry and often, particularly in the service industry, it's often the same people. They just wear different hats and you've absolutely encapsulated that.

Jess Bell: Somewhere in amongst all of that, Sheena, we moved from the Southern Highlands to Cowra, so I'm now enjoying the Central West and my husband and I also run a beef finishing business on the side, which keeps me out of trouble. I'm very much enjoying my time in the West.

Sheena Carter: Good stuff. Well, look, let's jump into our topic, which is our farm business planning, which you've recently released a farm business plan book and supporting resources. But before we actually get into the nitty-gritty about that, what are some reasons for having a farm business plan? Why should a farm business bother developing their own plan and is it important for all businesses to have one?

Jess Bell: It certainly is, Sheena. So it's widely agreed that it's industry best practice to have a farm business plan, regardless of your size, the stage of your business, your production type, or your location. So what a business plan enables business operators, managers, and owners to do is it gets the strategic direction, intention, and the goals for your business out of your head and onto paper. And this is really important for clear communication, decision making and planning within your business.

Like I said before, stage and size of your business is irrelevant. A newer business might look at a business plan to help provide direction and evidence for required investment or expenditure within a new business. An experienced business might want to use their business plan to help improve efficiencies and drive growth within their business. So it's a fluid document, it's meant to be reviewed constantly and it's meant to encapsulate all parts of your business regardless of whether you're new or whether you're an established business. 

The other important part, or clear benefit of a business plan, is how much it improves communication and conversations between the members of your business. It doesn't matter whether you're a partnership, a trust, a company or a sole operator. It's a communication tool as much as a planning tool. So everyone in the business can literally get on the same page and work towards the same business goals.

Sheena Carter: And I think it's an important document. I know we've sort of used one at home here. We're a bit like you with a small beef operation. And when you're having those conversations when loans are up for review and you're talking to different people, if you can just give them a document that encapsulates a lot of detail about your business very quickly, it makes their life a lot easier as well.

Jess Bell: It sure does. And I think the other real benefit of it, I know from my own personal use of a business plan, is the accountability part. So it holds you accountable. And there's lots of research that has been done that shows by documenting your business intentions, goals and direction, you're far more likely to succeed. And it does increase your motivation and your accountability.

Sheena Carter: Absolutely. And when many people hear farm business plan, the first thing they probably think of is farm financials. Is this what the farm business plan is all about or is there more to it than that? What are the key components in the plan document?

Jess Bell: You're right, Sheena, most people do think finances and financials when we hear the word business planning. And it's true, the financial part of your business takes up a big part, or should take up a big part of your business plan. But we also need to consider a more holistic or rounded view of the business when developing a solid strategy for the business moving forward. There's lots of templates out there, dairy-specific templates and ag industry-specific templates. And there's lots of different approaches to developing a business plan. But generally, you want to cover the key themes or components of any business to ensure a well-rounded approach to planning. If we take the recently launched farm business planning publication from TOCAL and the farm business team and the accompanying business plan template as a guide, we have kind of structured how you move through developing a business plan into eight key themes. So, these include business description, planning, production, marketing, resources, drought and adverse events, risk management and financials.

Sheena Carter: Okay, great. So, should we just, let's touch on each of those just briefly, just so people can get an understanding of what the components of those are.

Jess Bell: Sure. When we consider business description as our first theme, if we would like to call it that, these really look at the high level details of your business. Things like business structure, ownership, legalities. We get into a bit of detail around climate and land, staffing and key business personnel. Most of this stuff is really well known in detail by the business owners and managers, but we like to document these details for advisors or financiers as it can really help them understand the foundations of your business. If your business is quite large, maybe it's an intergenerational family business, detailing land ownership, lot titles and sizes, how the business is structured might also be very useful to any new members coming into the business and it's really handy to have it all summarised in one central area as well.

Sheena Carter: Absolutely. Yep. Very good.

Jess Bell: And then if we think about our second theme, we really look at future planning or goal setting here. So, this is where we like to see business owners set their intentions and strategic direction for the business. We sometimes might refer to it as a vision or mission statement. And it's a great exercise to do with everyone that has input and accountability in the business so you can develop a joint vision and everybody feels heard during the process.

Sheena Carter: I think it's probably important to add that vision and mission statements, sometimes people roll their eyes but people probably inherently have them in their mind, they just don't refer to it that way. And the other issue is that sometimes people that are involved within the business can have two very separate ideas, and it's not until you get together and have a discussion that, “oh, no, no, that's not what I was thinking.” So, yeah.

Jess Bell: That's exactly right. So, sometimes it's about aligning those big picture visions of what everybody in the business wants. And if we think of your vision statement as where you want to end up, then that helps you structure your goals because your goals are what help you to get there. When we look at goals, we sometimes refer to them as SMART goals. You know, they're specific, they're measurable, they're achievable, they're relevant and they're timely. So we want our goals to have some structure around them. And in this business planning guide, we break goals or goal settings down into sort of two main types. We have our long-term and our short-term goals. So our long-term goals are our high-level strategic goals. Their timeframe might be 5 to 10, maybe even 20-year goals. And I know personally, I sometimes struggle with long-term goals. I like to get down into the detail and it's hard to think past that day-to-day operational stuff, but it's actually really important if you want to improve business performance and sustainability over the long time to think long-term and really structure some long-term goals there.

Sheena Carter: Yeah, and I guess that's a key thing with agriculture. It is, you know, generally business owners in agriculture are in there for the long term. It's decades. It's not just a few years.

Jess Bell: That's right. So when we have considered our long-term goals, we can then come back to maybe our happy place in that short-term or operational thinking space. So the day-to-day related tasks of the business. Some examples might be improving bulk milk cell count or those immediate milk quality goals. Pasture management or some emerging pest and weed management type goals.

Sheena Carter: Yeah, and I guess for the longer term goals, it might be things like perhaps, you know, succession planning, bringing the next generation into the business. It might be expanding the business, buying more land, moving the business. It might be any combination of things.

Jess Bell: That's exactly right, Sheena. And we also have, like, it's important as family farms and family businesses to consider some family goals in here too. So a short-term family goal might be watching the kids play sport on a Saturday afternoon or having every second Sunday off to have a sleep in. And long-term might be, am I going to put the kids through boarding school or do I, you know, whatever that looks like for them, have a holiday house that we get to in December every year. So it's important to think about your personal and your family goals when you're also looking at your business goals.

Sheena Carter: Right. Where are we up to? The next one, production planning.

Jess Bell: Yeah, so that's sort of our third theme in the book. And that usually involves the calendar of operations. Again, often very well known in detail by business owners and senior managers of the business. But it's about getting it out of your head and onto paper. And that allows any other staff, any other members of the business, visibility on what's ahead and what might need attention, additional staffing or resourcing in the coming months.

Sheena Carter: Yeah, and I think also important, you know, should that key manager, operator, owner, be taken out of the business for, you know, whatever reason, whether it's injury, you know, illness, this is a great thing to have available for someone to fall back on, it's probably high level, but it's there and you know the direction where we should be. 

I think another thing to add, this is an issue that probably pops up at various points throughout the plan, but in a calendar of operations or production plan with us, I know it's key to flag important times of the year when you need to be assessing how the season is going. So, for example, we're a bit like you, we're on a dry land beef property. We're in the Upper Hunter of New South Wales. So for us, there's two really key times of the year. One is April as we head into winter and then October as we head into summer. So we need to be looking at what our feed in the paddock looks like, what the water availability is and the outlook for the coming season. Should we be starting to make some decisions around pulling numbers back, selling some cattle, perhaps purchasing in some feed, whatever. Put that in the calendar, put a reminder in your phone or whatever So you don't forget and all of a sudden end up in December and no feed and go, oh, we forgot. But, you know, I think that's really important to have those trigger points flagged. Also important in your risk management and drought planning, which we'll get to shortly.

Jess Bell: That's right, Sheena. And another good reminder of why your business plan is a document that you review all the time and you do make changes to as need be. That's a perfect example. 

So, then after production, we kind of move on to marketing, which for a dairy farmer is probably around the time to set targets for milk quality, production incentives. What decisions or considerations might need to be made around surplus feed or livestock at certain parts of the year or certain times of the business. This is your business's opportunity to market and sell these products, if that's what you wish to do. How often and to which markets, those are the sorts of questions and considerations we're looking to capture in a marketing plan. It's also a good opportunity to consider who your customer might be and are there any other ways to add value to your business. 

So then we move on to business resources, so ideally we want our whole farm business plan to consider business resources and this encompasses everything from plant and equipment, man-made infrastructure, our fences, our dairy sheds, our laneways, our stock and irrigation, water and infrastructure, to the natural resources and capital that we find on our properties. So, soils, pastures, waterways and native vegetation. All of these resources contribute to the productivity and profitability of our business. So, we need to make sure they're well-managed and maintained because we know they contribute to viable, long-term, sustainable businesses.

As I have continually said, and most producers will agree with me, farmers will already have a rough schedule of when and what resources probably need attention at what times of the year. But to get it out of your head and onto paper, it helps keeps us accountable. It helps us allocate a budget for these resources. And it probably helps us maybe remember the little shed or the fallen down fence that we don't always see that we know needs attention, but is sometimes pushed to the back of our mind. So by getting it out and writing it all down, including everybody else in the business, you're maybe not as inclined to forget or push those littler jobs to the back of your mind. They're there and they're remembered.

Sheena Carter: And I guess in this, you're actually actioning it and saying, okay, the back boundary fence with that little hole in it, Jess, you need to be doing that, whatever. When time's a bit quieter and you can head out there, but it might be in this month.

Jess Bell: That's exactly right. And that's what your plan is. You plan for it, you put a date in place, and then it doesn't become a problem when, you know, six months down the track, when you have put the dry cows in there and then all of a sudden you've forgotten you've had to fix that fence. So it's all about that preparation part. 

After resources, the book moves into risk management. So this is a dedicated area of your plan to identify different types of risks within your business and develop the strategies or the actions ahead of time to manage them when the need arises. So, risk management is all about preparation and how it helps you respond and recover from the impacts of inevitable and unforeseen risks. And there are lots of different types of business risks. Probably the big ones for most dairy farmers and farmers in New South Wales climate, obviously drought and floods over the last seven years have played a huge impact in businesses. Biosecurity, we should all have a pretty solid biosecurity plan these days and there are some great industry and government resources to help you develop one if you haven't.

Finance risk is another big part of risk management within any farming business. It's important to be across your farm financial position and the seasonality of cash flow, debt and equity levels within your business. Changes in interest rates can also put a strain on servicing your debt if you're overexposed, and Sheena, you're probably far more qualified to talk about finance risk and mitigation within dairy businesses.

Sheena Carter: Well, and I think another thing with, yes, changes in interest rates can certainly impact and you should be obviously doing budgets around that and some sort of sensitivity analysis when you're taking on debt. But I'd also add things like a change in season can add exposure here for a dairy business. So if you've got to unexpectedly purchase more feed due to drought or prolonged wet weather, that's going to have an impact on your cash flow and therefore your debt servicing as well. So yeah, finance risk is a very important one to manage and have a plan, but also make sure you're having those conversations with your financier as things are evolving and keep them on the same page as you, so nothing is a surprise to them. And they'll often be quite happy to work with you, knowing that you've got a plan and you're actually proactively trying to manage the situation.

Jess Bell: The other risk to probably call out here, Sheena, is compliance. This sort of encompasses things like your licensing, your animal welfare obligations, disposal of APVMA chemicals and drugs on farm, but also financial compliance with ATO, GST, tax returns, all of that. So compliance risk in this book sort of covers all of those components and does include WHS and OH&S in there as well.

Sheena Carter: Yeah, it’s a big area and it might sound like a very dry area, but it can get you in all sorts of trouble if you're not managing it and aware of all those obligations. As you say, and they can have serious consequences if they're not met so make sure that you are on top of them. I do recall somewhere in the book there's a link to a website that you answer a few questions about your business and it stipulates what your requirements are. We might put a link to that in the show notes if I can find it again Jess because I can't think of it off the top of my head. 

But the other thing I like in the book about the risk management is on page 42, there's a great risk matrix, which helps you rank the risks that you've identified in terms of importance. It looks at the consequence, but it also tries to quantify that consequence in a dollar value, which is the first time I've actually seen that in a risk matrix. So that's quite good.

Jess Bell: And you've touched on it prior, Sheena, this theme or this chapter within the book can be a bit overwhelming. Risk is a really big topic and it encompasses lots of different parts of your business. But this is why we have it. By reviewing the risks and documenting your strategies using the risk matrix to help categorise the risk and lower that threat or that rating to your business, it reduces the pressure of decision making during really high stress times. So even if the decision changes slightly at that point you have a plan, you've got a bit of a ballpark idea of where you want to go and it really does improve your confidence and your preparation levels in terms of whatever that risk is. So it's good to be aware, you've got the knowledge, you've thought about which risks impact your business and how you're going to mitigate them and you're prepared for when they arise.

Sheena Carter: Absolutely.

Jess Bell: Moving on to sort of more risky topics, I guess, and that this is around drought and climatic adverse events, I guess, and planning and preparing for these. Our business planning guide and business planning template covers both drought, flood and other adverse weather events. If the last six or seven years has taught us anything, it's that the unexpected is often just around the corner. And it is so much better to invest in preparation than recovery. We know recovery outcomes are far better when we are prepared. And I guess the key takeaway from this section of the book is act early, review your plan regularly, and have set trigger points for decisions ahead of time. The other really cool resource here is around drought and flood plans that the book covers, and that can help you structure these points and trigger points and decision-making responsibilities.

Sheena Carter: Yeah, and they're really good, those plans. There's a couple of templates in the book for that, as you've said, but the thing I like about them is it ensures you actually take stock of the right things like your livestock numbers, the feed you've got on hand and your water availability, but quantifying that now, how much water have we got, what is our water demand and then set those trigger points which is really important.

Jess Bell: The final theme in the book is what I like to call the pointy end of the business plan and we've touched on this and this is the finance section. Generally, I think dairy farmers are really well resourced, both industry and government-wise in this area. There's some really good resources to support financial understanding and analysis of dairy businesses. In this section, we cover the basics here and it is more broad to cover all ag industries. We have financial templates and statements and explain how they fit together and where numbers come from different statements or templates to fit together to create your financial overview of your business. Dairy producers should be aware that there is some more specific resources available and there are some slight differences in the book that we might touch on at the end, Sheena.

Sheena Carter: Yeah, sure. And as you say, the dairy industry does have excellent resources and we'll touch on a few of them in a minute, which many people will have heard me talk about numerous times, but they are really, really good.

Jess Bell: They are. And so, the financial chapter of the book pretty much covers all of the content. That's kind of the book summed up. There is a checklist at the end to help guide you in completing your own business plan, but you can tailor a business plan and you can tailor the book to suit your needs. So, some people may have already covered certain parts of a business plan and have that documented in other areas of their business or in their office. So you may only need to complete certain chapters or certain areas of a business plan. So it's got that flexibility and the whole point of this publication and the whole point of a business plan is to tailor it to your business so it's fit for purpose and relevant for you.

Sheena Carter: Okay, so what's the best way for someone to work through the farm business plan and who are some of the key people they should be considering working with when they're pulling it together?

Jess Bell: I would encourage anyone that has yet to have a documented business plan to download the template off our website. If you don't like our template or you would prefer to use an industry-specific business plan, they're everywhere. So, find the one that you like the layout of and find the one that suits your business, download that. And I would probably start completing sections that you feel familiar or confident with. This could be calendar of operations, your business description, maybe staffing. And then when it comes to the business vision statement, goals, and the finance section, that's when you bring in your trusted team. It will not only help you see the bigger picture, but it will make everybody in the business feel like they're valued and a part of the process and their goals and visions for the business are heard.

Jess Bell: When we think of the who, it's really anyone in your business who holds ownership or managerial positions or that you want to be included in the development of your business plan. I would encourage you to consider key family members who may be transitioning either in or out of the business if it's a family business as their goals and dreams for the business are often still very relevant. We can also look at any supporting individuals or businesses that are valued and respected within your dairy business. So, this might be a financial advisor, a consultant, your financier. So, think about service providers or stakeholders external to your business that can really add value when you're developing your plan.

Sheena Carter: Absolutely. As you say, it's a holistic plan so the more people you've got involved that are having some impact in the business the better. One of the things I like about the book is that it's got good examples or case studies to help guide people when they're working their way through it. Often you might look at some of these things and go, I have no idea what they're actually asking me, but there's some great case studies. They're not dairy specific ones but they're same principles, you can work your way through it and have a look so that's fantastic. How do people find the resources in the book itself?

Jess Bell: A hard copy of the book can be purchased off the Tocal website and we can pop that in the show notes. You can just google Tocal publications and find it there. All the templates and the Excel spreadsheets, both financials and a copy of a business plan template, are free to download from the same website page. And for those that prefer working online, we have also developed the business planning content into an online course, which is set for release in November. It's the same content. You've got access to the same templates and the same case study examples. You can just work through the chapters as online modules. So keep an eye out for its launch. We might be able to put it in the Dairy newsletter and on the DPI Dairy Facebook page, Sheena.

Sheena Carter: Yeah, brilliant. Excellent. That sounds really good. And yeah, different people like working in different ways. So I think you're covering a lot of those ways, evidently. And I guess I should flag also, we've got the cash flow template in there, your profit and loss, balance sheets, etc. I think it's really important for dairy businesses to be using the dairy standard chart of accounts. So a standard chart of accounts is what's used in accounting software and it's what's used by your accountant when they're developing your tax reports. But the dairy chart of accounts has dairy-specific costs and income categories, which, for an accountant—they are working on a chart of accounts that enables them to do financial reports for tax reporting purposes. But as a dairy business manager, you often want to know a bit more detail about the cost structure so that you can, A, track your performance over time, but also manage that performance. So an example might be something like feed costs in, a typical tax accountant's chart of accounts, feed tends to get lumped into everything but we know within a dairy business feed there's multiple different types of feeds, you've got your concentrates, hay, silage, additives etc. So you might want more detail on that for management purposes. Also things like herd costs, shed costs, you need to have good oversight of those to manage them well so we'll put a link to that in the show notes and I'd strongly encourage people to adopt them. It doesn't have to be highly detailed; you pick the level of detail that's relevant for your business. And there's also a dairy cash budgeting tool which Dairy Australia has. It's an online, again freely downloadable spreadsheet which is really good and it's set out in that chart of accounts structure so yeah, again I'd encourage dairy farmers to use that one.

So I guess just in wrapping up do you have any practical tips for farmers who might be feeling overwhelmed by all of this?

Jess Bell: Well, hopefully not. Hopefully, we've just given them a lot of confidence to go out and arm themselves with a business plan. I've said it multiple times today. Most farmers will already have 70% to 80% of the plan in their heads. It's just about formalising it on paper. And like you just mentioned, Sheena, within your business, you can pick the level of detail that you want to provide in a documented form.

I reckon it's important to remember that when we're building out a business plan, don't dwell on the sections that might feel overwhelming or might be new to you, like a vision or a mission statement. If you're struggling to complete them, maybe dot point it. Get a thought or two out and move on. Come back later when you've finished some of the other sections or when you've got someone within the business to help you flesh that out again. I think that sort of helps the creative juices start flowing and maybe you've thought about things as you've progressed through other areas of the business plan. 

The other amazing resource that's available to farmers is the Farm Business Resilience Program Team. So we're here to help. I guess it's a good segue into a little bit more about the program, Sheena, but this is a program that has been running since 2021. It's a joint initiative of the Australian government and their Future Drought Fund and the New South Wales government's DPI and we are here to support primary producers regardless of your production system prepare for business challenges including risk and drought. So as part of that we're here to help you develop your business plan and then we have some really great additional programs that can help you implement your business plan so it's not just about documenting it. It's actually about actioning some of these goals and what we want to achieve within a business plan.

Sheena Carter: Awesome. That is really good. Yeah, it's not just here's the resource, off you go.

Jess Bell: Not at all. We've got dedicated coaching programs where producers can work with agribusiness coaches to look at their business plan. If there's parts of it that still need some development, they can help tailor it and develop it, but they can also help go, okay, you've identified weed and pest management as an area of improvement in your business, let's focus on that and tick off some goals and action some of these goals that you've identified here. We've also worked with Dairy New South Wales and Dairy Australia and supported initiatives like Dairy Business Support Services, Our Farm, Our Plan and Mini Milk Biz. So there's really great resources out there. There's great programs out there and the Farm Business Program is another one of those and here to help anyone who needs it.

Sheena Carter: Fantastic. Thanks, Jess. And we've covered quite a lot of ground, but listeners should have a pretty good understanding of when to develop a plan, what makes up their plan, who to involve when they're pulling it together, why they should develop one and how they can use it and be able to not only access the book itself, but also the case studies, templates and dairy specific resources. So I think we've covered a lot. And to your point, the dairy industry certainly is well serviced in a lot of these areas. So the resources are there, use them, use the people that are there to support you.

Jess Bell: That's right, Sheena. And it's never too late to start. That's probably my final comment to the group and to the listeners. It's never too late to start, get it out on paper and see where you go, keep reviewing it. And hopefully it provides a really good document to take your business forward into the future.

Sheena Carter: Beautiful. Well, thanks very much for your time, Jess, it's been a great conversation and great to be able to tell our listeners about this resource. Thank you.

Jess Bell: Thanks for having me on.

Sheena Carter: That's all for today's episode of The Business of Dairy. We hope you enjoyed diving into the fascinating world of dairy farming and industry insights. As we continue to expand and evolve, we greatly appreciate your support. Our show is thriving, attracting new listeners each week. But we believe there's always room to grow and we need your help to make it happen. If you've found value in our discussions, we kindly ask you to take a moment to rate and leave a comment about the podcast on your preferred platform. Your feedback not only lets us know what you enjoy but also helps boost our visibility to others who might benefit from our content. I sincerely thank you for being part of our community and we look forward to bringing you more engaging episodes in the future with the continued funding and support of the Hunter Local Land Services. Until next time, stay curious and keep milking those opportunities.