FOR ASPIRING FARMERS

Your farm plan: the property, how you'll run it, and the risks

Scale and soil condition are two of the key things a backer or retiring farmer will weigh up when they read your plan.

So the part that describes the farm, how you'll run it, and what could go wrong carries a lot of weight. In the Farm Ownership Plan from You Can Own a Farm, that's the property plan, the farm operating plan and the risk plan.

The property plan

Describe the farm, then show why it can work. Start with the basics:

• Address, size in hectares, and current uses
• Assets: the house, sheds, equipment and dams
• Title details
• Where it sits in the broader landscape

Then what the farm offers, and what will make it viable:

• Topography, soil type and condition, including fertiliser history
• Vegetation cover
• How close it is to towns, markets, abattoirs, transport hubs and labour
• Water security: dams, streams, rainfall and groundwater
• Infrastructure: buildings, fencing, dams, tanks, plant, machinery, power and internet
• Biodiversity: wildlife corridors and threatened species habitat
• Zoning, land use restrictions and rezoning possibilities
• Tourism and aesthetics
• Your connection to the farm or the area
• What's commonly farmed in the area

Cover every point, even briefly. You never know what will catch a reader's eye.

Scale and soil

A farm must be big enough to be viable. Set out how much room there is to grow the operation.

Then explain why the soils suit your farming system. If they don't, explain how you plan to improve them.

The operating plan

Explain how you'll manage the farm profitably, and ideally build a stronger operation over time. Start with your first plans:

• A brief overview of past operations
• Current operations, and what you'll keep or change
• Whether the retiring farmer will stay involved, and how
• The farming methods you plan to use, such as holistic grazing, regenerative farming or crop rotation
• Short term improvements: soil remediation, revegetation, fencing, irrigation upgrades
• The crops you'll grow and the stock you'll run, including stocking rates
• Other income: accommodation, weddings, ecotourism, farm gate sales
• How you'll protect and enhance biodiversity and waterways
• Farm management technology and software

The next ten years

Then your longer term plans:

• Where you want the farm to be in a decade
• Plans for scaling up: stages, timelines and spending
• Weed and pest eradication
• Pasture improvement and building soil health
• Infrastructure expansion
• Niche crops, new markets and farm gate sales

A statement of vision makes the big picture clear. For example: "In ten years, we will have improved infrastructure and good paddock rotation with livestock and crops. Cell grazing with cereal farming will maximise returns per hectare."

Explain how your everyday work will improve the land, not just take from it. Backers and retiring farmers increasingly want to see improvements in soil health and biodiversity.

What could go wrong

Show that you've thought about the key business risks:

• Extreme weather: how will you protect against fire, flood and drought, and how would the business survive?
• Prices and markets: how secure are your markets, and what if prices fall?
• Animal and plant health, and biosecurity
• Workplace health and safety
• Financial risks: how will you manage cash flow problems?
• Compliance: licences, regulations and legal obligations
• Skills gaps: what training do you need, and what advisers?
• Personnel risks: what happens if you can't perform your role?

Insurance covers some of these. Say which, and how you'll handle the rest.

The full guide, You Can Own a Farm, is free at cultivatefarms.com/resources.

You can build your own plan at cultivatefarms.com/plan.