Beef producers always need to be keeping an eye on the bottom line in regard to the financial performance of their businesses.

In the current climate of favourable prices it is easy to be comfortable about how our industry is going but we all know that challenging times will return.

Cost of Production (CoP) is a key factor affecting the bottom line profitability of beef businesses but very few beef producers know how much it really costs to produce a kilogram of beef on their properties.

Calculating your Cost of Production is an important first step in assessing how you are going and can be an initial step towards making change.

I coordinate the “More Beef from Pastures” project in NSW for Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) and we have just launched a program to calculate Cost of Production for beef businesses.

It has been designed to be simple and easy-to-use and just looks at the beef business, it does not look at equity levels, amount of borrowing, interest cost, off-farm income and investment.

Its sole objective is to help you calculate your beef business costs in dollars per kilogram of beef produced.

Once you have calculated that there is great scope to start looking at what is influencing the cost most and begin planning ways to reduce it if you consider it too high to realise a sufficient margin from your market place.

How to get involved? The calculator is available at no cost from MLA or you can join in a group with other interested beef producers to work through the process with help from NSW DPI.

Also if the group desires, members can meet again after calculating their individual CoP to discuss averages and ranges that have occurred within the group.

This offers great opportunities for sharing experience amongst other producers in the group and also for exploring options for change.

The first of these workshops are currently being held and they are free because of the support from MLA and NSW DPI.

If you are interested contact me on 6662 2288, 0427 001937 or at bill.hoffman@agric.nsw.gov.au

This column appears in Agriculture Today.