Thursday, 03 October 2019 07:55

Workshops to raise financial confidence

Written by  Staff Reporters
Jules Benton, DWN chief executive. Jules Benton, DWN chief executive.

Dairy Women's Network (DWN) is partnering with ASB to run NZ-wide workshops aimed at building farmers’ financial confidence.

Their key focus will be fundamentals of rural banking and finance and the wider industry picture.

“Maintaining control of your business and ensuring it is resilient enough to continue to be profitable is paramount,” said DWN chief executive Jules Benton. 

“ASB Rural wants to build greater knowledge, awareness and understanding of financial management, develop stronger budgeting skills and behaviour and connect customers with tools to help make that process easier.”

There will be 17 workshops for DWN members, in locations including Kaipara and Southland. The first session will be in South Waikato on October 2. 

“The dairy sector has had a golden run over the last 20 years or so but we’re seeing more change in the industry than almost ever before,” ASB rural general manager Richard Hegan said. 

“There is much opportunity, but some tough challenges facing the sector. 

“The more we can help build financial confidence in our farmers the better prepared they’ll be to position themselves to make the most of the opportunities available.” 

A 90-minute fundamentals workshop will tell how a bank assesses a dairy business, and what a farmer can do to support a banking relationship. It will cover how some farmers have built greater resilience into their business to withstand dairy downturns.

“We believe the fundamentals workshops are important for those just starting out or who have been running their finances for only a few years,” Benton said.  

“ASB will cover strategies and ideas to give less experienced dairy farmers information and guidance to build greater financial confidence.”

Following that will be ‘bigger picture workshops’ for experienced farmers who already understand how a bank assesses risk. These will explain how farmers can improve resilience in their businesses.

The workshops cover the dairy sector story over the last 20 years and why building resilience in a dairy business is paramount. 

“We need to cover both ends of the experience scale to add real financial value and understanding for members,” Benton said. 

More like this

Featured

Owl Farm marks 10 years as NZ’s first demonstration dairy farm

In 2015, the signing of a joint venture between St Peter's School, Cambridge, and Lincoln University saw the start of an exciting new chapter for Owl Farm as the first demonstration dairy farm in the North Island. Ten years on, the joint venture is still going strong.

National

Machinery & Products

New McHale terra drive axle option

Well-known for its Fusion baler wrapper combination, Irish manufacturer McHale has launched an interesting option at the recent Irish Ploughing…

Amazone unveils flagship spreader

With the price of fertiliser still significantly higher than 2024, there is an increased onus on ensuring its spread accurately at…

» Latest Print Issues Online

Milking It

The real emergency

The nutters of the green world, aided and abetted by the lamestream media, are rewriting the English language for the worse.

A very low road

OPINION: The self righteous activists at Greenpeace are copying the self-righteous lefties behind the ‘free Palestine’ movement – not surprising given…

» Connect with Dairy News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter