Kiwi cunning: Need to brush up on your dairy agri-business skills?

A series of agri-business seminars for dairy farm business owners, given by a New Zealand based agri-business consultant, is being organised through Macra Agricultural Skillnet for this autumn.

Lynaire Ryan, a consultant based in New Zealand, is partnering with Skillnet to deliver a series of business courses.

Coming from working with Dairy NZ and as a result of encouragement from Dr. Pat Dillon of Teagasc, these business seminars are being brought to Irish farmers, according to the training body.

Since 1997 Ryan has been involved in developing and facilitating seminars for dairy farm business owners in New Zealand and Ireland.

The consultant is offering two seminar types: a Business Brush-up seminar; and a Strategic Management seminar.

Organisers recommend attending both seminar types, adding that spouses, where relevant, are strongly encouraged to attend the Strategic Management course.

Business Brush-up

The Business Brush-up seminar will be given in a four-day course format, requiring one day’s attendance a fortnight, from 10:00am until 3:30pm.

Each day will have a different focus:

Optimising your dairy farm business;
Evaluating your dairy business performance – financial analysis;
Steps to growing your farm business; and
Understand yourself and your team better.

Each day will be facilitated by Ryan and supported by Teagasc or private consultants.

Strategic Management

The Strategic Management seminar is a two-day overnight course, run from 10:00am until 5:00pm the first day, and 8:30am until 3:30pm on the second day.

The seminar will focus on providing clarity for key business priorities and assist farmers in developing a one-page strategic plan for the future, establishing the relevant goals and strategies.

It will also involve learning from a dairy farming couple about their strategic planning experiences.

Both seminar types will be offered in a variety of locations, being run throughout September and October.

The Business Brush-up course will take place in counties Meath, Clare, Tipperary, Cork and Kilkenny; while the Strategic Management option will be run in counties Clare, Westmeath and Kildare.

Interested farmers are advised to book now to avoid disappointment, as numbers are “strictly limited”. Bookings close Wednesday, August 15, for the Business Brush-up courses.

For those interested, further information on pricing and details can be found from the leaflet here, while bookings can be made online through the Macra Skillnet website.

Where online booking is not an option, bookings can be made over the phone on: 01-4268905, Tuesday to Thursday.