Data published by DARD on Thursday 05/11/2015 shows variation in farm performance across sectors in 2014/’15 compared to 2013/’14, but certain trends between farm enterprises remain unchanged.
The Northern Ireland Farm Performance Indicators booklet is published annually by DARD detailing physical and financial performances across NI farm enterprises
Average gross margins for dairy, pigs and all cereal enterprises in 2014/’15 were lower than 2013/’14 levels, while average gross margins in sheep and suckler cow enterprises increased, according to the latest data in the Northern Ireland Farm Performance Indicators booklet published on Thursday by DARD.
In dairying, average gross margin per cow for 2014/’15 was £877, which is £175 less than 2013/’14 levels. Suckler cows in non-less favoured ares (LFA) and disadvantaged areas both had increases in gross margin per head by £27 and £17 to £172 and £186 for 2014/’15 respectively. Severely disadvantaged area (SDA) suckler cow herd gross margins remained steady at around £149 per head.
Disadvantaged areas
Sheep enterprises in non-LFA, disadvantaged areas, SDA cross-bred flocks and SDA hardy hill flocks all had average gross margin per head increases in 2014/’15 to £58, £34, £39 and £25 respectively. However, in the pig sector, average gross margin per head fell in 2014/’15 by £4 from £32 in 2013/’14.
In tillage, all cereal crops in the publication had the lowest average gross margin per hectare across the four previous years shown. For 2014/’15, average gross margin per hectare for spring barley was £578, winter barley was £708, spring oats £676, winter oats £953 and winter wheat £793.
Ware potatoes saw a rise in gross margin from £2,379 per hectare in 2013/’14 to £2,582 per hectare in 2014/’15.
Representative sample
Data for the publication came from the annual accounts of a representative sample of 360 farms from across NI. Subsidies are not taken into account in the publication.
Data was submitted through the Farm Business Survey from annual accounts that all ended at some point in the first half of 2015. Prices for farm commodities across many sectors have fallen significantly from the time the data in the survey was taken.
For example in dairying, the average milk price paid during this survey was 28.3p/litre, whereas the average price last month in NI was around 9p/litre less than this.
Profitability trends
In the booklet, enterprises within each sector were ranked in four performance categories from excellent to poor in terms of gross margin per head (or per hectare for tillage).
A common trend across sectors was for top performing enterprises to have lower outputs but also lower costs compared with poorer performing enterprises.
For example, milk output per cow for dairy enterprises classified excellent was £2,050, whereas for good enterprises it was higher at £2,148. Total variable costs for good farms was £1,154 but for excellent farms was much lower at £902.
To break this down into the main costs in an enterprise, in tillage, for example, it is seen that the excellent performing spring barley enterprises applied fertiliser at 430kg/ha and yielded 6.62t/ha of grain, whereas the poor enterprises used 608kg/ha and yielded only 4.81t/ha.
Pronounced
Across the livestock sectors, the differences between the top performing enterprises and the poorer performing enterprises are even more pronounced when analysed in terms of gross margin per hectare as opposed to gross margin per head, as the top performers tend to have higher stocking rates.
For example with non-LFA ewes, excellent enterprises had a gross margin per ewe of £75 with the average value across flocks being £58. Stocking rate on excellent enterprises was 11.04 ewes per hectare meaning gross margin per hectare was £828, but the average stocking rate across flocks was 8.16, equating to an average gross margin per hectare of £470.
(Source – Irish Farmers Journal – Peter Mc Cann – 06/11/2015)
DARD – Northern Ireland Farm Performance Indicators 2014-15