Two new beef and sheep grazing benchmarking groups are to be established later this month by red meat levy body Quality Meat Scotland (QMS).
The groups will be set up as part of the organisation’s new Graze+ initiative, which sets out to get livestock farmers benchmarking their performance data in a bid to improve their productivity and performance from rotational grazing.
One group will be established in the north of Scotland and the other in the south.
QMS said the three-year project, which is free to join, would complement its new Better Grazing programme.
Launched last month, the grazing programme comprises six regional groups across Scotland.
QMS knowledge transfer specialist Emily Grant said the first meetings of the new Graze+ benchmarking groups would take place at the end of this month.
She said although the groups are free to join, spaces will be limited.
Each group will meet four times a year to share and discuss benchmarking data in a bid to boost farm output from grass.
Mrs Grant said by using shared benchmarked data, group members would be able to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of their own grazing management systems and compare them with other group members.
They will then have the opportunity to visit group members’ farms and identify potential improvements they could make on their own farms.
“Feedback from farmers who attended the QMS grazing groups which ended in April this year indicated many were interested in looking at grazing management in more detail. They were also keen to analyse the financial impact of the changes they had made to their own grazing strategies,” added Mrs Grant.
“The opportunity to benchmark and share experiences and learning from other farmers in the Graze+ programme is set to be a hugely valuable way to help these farmers continue to progress.”
Farmers interested in getting involved must be prepared to undertake financial benchmarking and to share results within the group. They must also be prepared to make changes to their farming system to improve productivity and attend at least three Graze + meetings a year.