| | The AgriProfit$ program offers customized business analysis to help Alberta producers maximize profits and lower costs for their farms at no charge. Anatoliy Oginskyy, senior production economist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, outlines some changes to the program and explains how the services will expand in 2019.
Currently, AgriProfit$ program participants receive customized cost-of-production reports, including a budget sheet, income statement, as well as cost-of-production summaries for cow-calf, backgrounder, forage, pasture, and commercial crop enterprises.
“The program not only will stay in place in 2019, but we actually are planning to expand the services,” says Oginskyy. “More beef and crop producers will have opportunity to participate in AgriProfit$ and receive their free customized cost-of-production reports.”
Several changes to the program have already been incorporated during the last two years, including a quicker delivery of reports. Explains Oginskyy, “Our final objective is to deliver the report in one month for beef producers, and in two weeks for crop producers, from the time the data is received. By doing so, producers can use the cost-of-production information to plan their activities for the following year. We will be improving the software and process to reach this standard.”
Oginskyy adds that the AgriProfit$ team will produce a series of short videos to help producers interpret the reports. They will explain how the measures are calculated, how to interpret specific numbers, and how to use them in the decision making process. “Also starting in 2019, participating producers will have the option to receive one-on-one help with a member of the team to interpret the reports.”
Those enrolled will also receive the historic 22 Year Cow-Calf Benchmarks, produced by the AgriProfit$ team along with additional products. “Along with the standard cost-of-production reports, returning participants will receive the historic performance report for all participation years,” notes Oginskyy. “They show the progress made in terms of cost reduction, improving physical performance like ADG, and many other economic and financial indicators. Starting this fall, we will be generating two new types of benchmarks - backgrounder and pasture efficiency - for producers and the public.”
Oginskyy says that AgriProfit$ survey data collection takes several hours to complete, partly due to the high level of details needed for both economic and physical performance measures of the reports. “Some cow-calf summary reports measures like cow conception rate, calf crop rate, length of the feeding period, etc., all require very specific data. Reducing the amount of data would affect the value of the reports, and we obviously do not want that.”
Survey data collection is also affected by how producers keep their own records and how that data is transferred to the AgriProfit$ forms. “We are currently investigating how data from major accounting software like QuickBooks, Quicken, or AgExpert can be automatically transferred to the AgriProfit$ data tables. It will not eliminate the issue completely, but it will definitely decrease the data entering time,” explains Oginskyy.
Producers interested in participating in the 2019 AgriProfit$ program can sign up at www.agriculture.alberta.ca/agriprofits, call livestock economist Ann Boyda at 780-422-4088, or contact crop economist Manglai at 780-422-4056. Deadline to apply is November 30, 2018. Find more information about the AgriProfit$ Business Analysis and Research Program.
Contact:
Anatoliy Oginskyy
780-427-5390
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