Life Sciences Commons^™

Beef Farms : Thriving Profits To Expensive Lifestyles, Bevan Kingdon, Greg Sawyer

Journal of the Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, Series 4

Low wool prices in the last few years have stimulated interest in beef production in many areas of the State. Market sales at $500 and above for vealers sound attractive, but profitability of farms varies greatly. A BeefFarm Survey conducted by the Department of Agriculture has some interesting preliminary findings. Based on fairly modest returns for the operator's time, some farms are actually losing rather than making money on their beef enterprise, although potential profits are sizeable with good management. Interestingly, the biggest farms are not always the most efficient.

Tough Times Call For A Review Of Farm Business Performance, Martin Van Bueren, John Young

Journal of the Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, Series 4

Most Australian farm businesses specialising in wool production are operating at a loss at current wool prices. After both short term operating and long term costs of capital depreciation are accounted for, only a small number of wool growers are able to make a profit with the wool market indicator below 500c/kg.

Poor prices have stimulated wool growers to review their operations and look to ways of improving cash flow in the short term, such as diversifying into cropping. The downturn should also prompt growers to address the longer term trends of declining terms of trade and historically poor productivity …

Increasing Profit On Dairy Farms, G R. Olney, Warren Standing

Journal of the Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, Series 4

Farmers continually make decisions on all aspects of their farms that influence profit. For dairy farmers these include the number of cows, calving pattern, level and type of supplementary feeding, area of each pasture type and fodder crop, and the areas for hay or silage, or both. The extent and type of the beef sideline operations also influence the overall profitability of the farm.

The WesternAustralian Dairy Farm Model (WADFM) is a whole farm model developed by the Western Australian Department of Agriculture to help farmers maximise profits by considering all effects of such decisions on the farm.

Farm Operations Management, H E. Fels, A. W. Hogstrom

Journal of the Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, Series 4

The main defence of Australian farmers against the cost-price squeeze has been to increase productivity. The tendency is to run more and more stock per man and to grow more crop per man.

Some farmers run unusually large numbers of animal units per man-year.

The operations of 16 such farmers over one year were examined to find out whether it had been profitable for them to reduce labour inputs to such an extent.

A Calendar Of Farming Operations For Cereal And Sheep Areas Of Western Australia, Department Of Agriculture, Western Australia

Journal of the Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, Series 4

THIS calendar of farm operations for the Cereal and Sheep areas replaces the calendar published in the December 1949 issue of the Journal of Agriculture and reprinted as a leaflet.

This leaflet was subsequently reprinted twice with some amendments.