Proactive Management For Drought Resilience Webinar Series - RCS

ACT NRM and RCS invite you to join us for our first webinar series for 2024.

Running a farm or agribusiness involves juggling a lot of different balls. You are quite literally chief cook and bottle washer as you navigate everything from HR to nutrition, mechanics, finance, agronomy and construction. As with any topic, our ability to navigate our way through these topics is easier if we understand the first principles that underpin each topic. RCS has invested decades into developing principles that guide decision making in farm management.  

This four part webinar series designed specifically for ACT NRM will provide an overview of the key areas to consider when managing people, land, production systems and businesses in variable conditions. Using these principles will help put yourself in control and reduce stress whilst creating the best possible outcomes in your conditions.

The 90 minute webinars will be delivered by two senior RCS facilitators: Chief of Delivery, David McLean and Principle Advisor, Matt Barton. Each session will have adequate time for discussion and questions.  

Webinar themes and dates:

1. People - Friday 2 February 12.00pm - 1.30pm, presented by David McLean
This first webinar will start looking at the most important component of your business, you. How do we position ourselves to make better decisions. The key points covered are:

• Understanding the four pillars of your business and how they are linked.
  
• The RCS professional management model for decision making.
  
• The two ‘brains’ that drive us, when they work for us and when they work against us.
  
• How to identify when we are mentally ‘stuck’ and strategies to get unstuck to improve function and decision making.
2. Land - Tuesday 27 February 12.00pm - 1.30pm, presented by Matt Barton
Operating a grazing operation is such a pleasure when we have more grass than mouths. The same can be said for the opposite as running out of feed creates high levels of stress for the country, animals, people and business. This webinar will look at the strategies and tools we can use to put ourselves in control and ultimately be Grazing for Profit. Topics include:

• How to assess our real carrying capacity.
  
• Understanding rolling rainfall and trends in potential carrying capacity.
  
• Strategies to make sure you always have more grass than mouths.
  
3. Production - Monday 25 March 12.00pm - 1.30pm, presented by David McLean
To be an effective primary producer, we need to be doing just that – Producing. Our production systems need to be performing optimally for our agribusiness to work. This webinar will take a look at:

• Nutrition considerations – what animals need to perform
  
• Classes of animals and their stocking rate implications
• Selection of animals for optimising profitability

4. Business - Wednesday 17 April 12.00pm - 1.30pm, presented by Matt Barton 

The final webinar in this series will dig into the numbers. Whether you’re running a commercial operation or a lifestyle block, the numbers need to stack up. Specifically looking at business decisions during times of variability, we’ll discuss:

• Simple and effective gross margin analysis
• Cost of not acting during stressful times (the downward cycle)
• The RCS Three Secrets of Profit – where to focus and why.

Each webinar will be recorded and uploaded to the ACT NRM YouTube channel for future use and dissemination.