WITH less than 200 days to go before we make an exit from the European Union, there will no doubt be many farmers out there thinking about how to make their business work - with or without a deal.

From what we have seen so far, support from Government is unlikely to be same as it has been.

Like it or not, there is an onus on the industry to put books in order and show that the business is running as efficiently and cost effectively as possible.

A taster of what is to come has appeared in a £2.15 million initiative to help beef and sheep farmers prepare for Brexit.

Cue the Welsh Government’s Red Meat Benchmarking project, which is set to help 2,000 farmers improve the technical and financial performance of their businesses.

The two-month exercise, managed by Hybu Cig Cymru, requires farmers to input their business data and in return, participants will get a tailored assessment of their businesses – plus a £1,000 payment.

For some, this may be a daunting prospect, but that’s where your local FUW office comes into play.

We firmly believe that all decisions should be made on analysis of available data and have therefore trained 24 members of staff to give our full support to this potentially valuable scheme.

We now wait to see what level of interest there is amongst the wider farming community.

The scheme, which ends on December 10, runs on a first-come-first-served basis.

All you need is your data on the financial and physical performance of your business from the 2016-7 or 2017-8 financial years.

Many of you may ask what you get out of it.

Well, once all the data has been submitted and you have been accepted for the scheme, it will produce individual assessments that will include anonymous comparisons with similar businesses within the sector.

To be eligible, you must be registered with Farming Connect and have a minimum stocking level of 235 breeding ewes or 25 breeding cattle, or a combination of both.

So, all in all, it's not a bad deal.

This is your opportunity to take in the bigger picture of your business, get an understanding of the financial situation and take a good hard look at how it’s performing.

GLYN ROBERTS

President

FUW