Central West benchmarking project

Key information

Farmers in the Central West have the opportunity to boost their farm’s profitability and sustainability during the next 3 years through a benchmarking project with Central West Local Land Services (CWLLS).

During the project period from April 2025 to December 2027, participants will receive:

• coaching
• guidance
• resources
• ongoing support to improve their farming business.

This project builds on previous successes with the CWLLS Adapt project.

Project objectives

The project is subsidised through funding from the Australian Government Climate-Smart Agriculture Program (CSAP) and will assist Central West farmers to:

• adopt practices that reduce emissions
• build resilience to climate change
• drive sustainable agricultural growth
• improve production efficiency
• participate in carbon and natural capital conservation.

The first step in this is ensuring healthy agricultural businesses that are profitable and sustainably productive.  

Project details

This project will bring together farmers from across the region into economic benchmarking groups coordinated by agricultural benchmarking industry leader, Agrista.  

Business benchmarking will focus on finances and emissions to identify areas for improving production efficiency.

In addition to the benchmarking and financial upskilling activities, CWLLS will deliver production focused training to participants on complimentary demonstration sites to facilitate paddock-based learning and farmer-driven solutions.

Farm benchmarking meetings  

The benchmarking component comprises 2 parts:  

• dataset baseline data entry to help build individual farm business benchmark reports
• group analysis meetings, which will be managed by industry leader John Francis from Agrista.  

The Agrista team will provide a combination of support to help participants obtain their baseline datasets. This will be in the form of online financial literacy training workshops and one-to-one data entry assistance as well as group face-to-face sessions. These data entry sessions will all be compulsory.  

Once participants receive their benchmark reports, there will be 3 group interpretation meetings to be held in person to present the results and discuss trends. In these sessions we will look at key drivers of business performance and where improvements may be possible.  

Benchmarking reports  

The benchmarking report supplied by Agrista to farmers will provide an analysis of financial performance.  

It is calculated using metrics for the whole farm, per unit area (ha) and per unit of livestock production per Dry Sheep Equivalent (DSE).  

This includes:

• calculation of gross profit
• enterprise expenses
• overhead expenses (including depreciation of plant and equipment at market value and excluding capital expenditure from repairs and maintenance).  

Using this information, the benchmarking report will provide productivity measures at a whole farm level, including:

• return on assets managed
• operating return on equity
• operating profit (% gross profit)
• gross profit per full time equivalent labour unit
• scale (DSE managed).  

Production-focused training  

To participate in the subsidised project, it is a requirement for producers to attend at least 2 training sessions per year.  

Examples of workshops Local Land Services staff are equipped to deliver include training and advice on:

• cropping
• pasture assessment
• fodder conservation
• carbon farming
• natural capital
• livestock assessments
• soil masterclasses
• and many more.

Activities will be driven primarily by what is relevant to the benchmarking group.  

At one of the first training sessions, CWLLS will help producers obtain their net carbon emissions baseline.  

Use of data

Ownership of the benchmarking data is retained by the business contributing the data. Agrista and Local Land Services reserve the right to use the data. More information is provided in the application form.

Eligibility

Farmers and producers interested in collaborating with Local Land Services to trial and demonstrate the use of benchmarking for improving production efficiency are eligible.

Who can apply?

To be eligible, your farm must be:

• a registered business with financial records for the 2024 calendar year as a minimum
• based in, or have part of your farming business located in, the Central West LLS region.  

Commitment

The project will involve 3 benchmarking meetings per year as well as 3 training sessions.

To be eligible, you must be willing to: 

• attend a minimum of 2 benchmarking meetings and 2 training sessions per year in 2025, 2026 and 2027
• travel up to 3 hours to attend meetings due to the size of the CWLLS region. Participants will be grouped geographically where possible to minimise travel.

Cost

The cost of entry to this project is only $500 per business per year (a fraction of the commercial rate of $3,000 to $6,000).

Places are limited.

How to apply

Eligible land managers can contact the project team for further information or lodge an application form by 31 March 2025.  

Due to the limited number of spaces, applications will be assessed at the end of the application period. You will then be notified of the outcome of your application. 

Submit an EOI

Funding

This project is supported by the Australian Government through funding from the Natural Heritage Trust under the Climate-Smart Agriculture Program and delivered by Central West Local Land Services, a member of the Commonwealth Regional Delivery Partners panel.