Business Management

Publish Date: June 17, 2022

One of the primary goals on farms is to maximize pig survivability throughout every life stage. This is attained not only by having farm staff competent in animal care, but also by creating a culture that values and cares for people. Excellent care acknowledges the importance of words, behavior, values, and feelings amongst farm caregivers, and thus, incorporates these components in both the content and methodology when training. Studies reinforce that the best way to effectively train staff includes demonstration, mentorship, and verification.

Publish Date: May 2, 2022

Mortality reduces gross income but also changes the cost of pig production. Accurately projecting the impact of mortality on net income is important to determine if the marginal income of lower mortality is greater than the marginal cost of improving mortality. This fact sheet focuses on the potential economic benefit of improving mortality which builds on previous work (Crooks et al., 1993; Holtkamp, 2008; Dhuyvetter, 2014). This calculation is not a trivial task because the economic value of lowering mortalities depends on various prices and production efficiencies.

Publish Date: April 19, 2012

There are many ways of evaluating a business and making financial decisions for the business. Historically in agriculture, that has varied by the enterprises you have, the lender you work with and the part of the country you live in. These variations made it hard to compare apples to apples and maintain consistency across regions and enterprises. That was one of the main reasons that the Farm Financial Standards Task Force was formed. The Task Force (FFSTF) has since developed a set of guidelines to make it easier to consistently evaluate a business and make financial decisions based on that evaluation.

Publish Date: April 17, 2012

The operations current ratio is obtained by dividing total current assets by the total current liabilities and expressed as that result to one. Current ratio measures the extent to which current assets if sold would pay off current liabilities. A ratio greater than 1.60 is considered good. A ratio less than 1.10 is considered poor.

Publish Date: April 17, 2012

The state of any business can be measured at any point in time by completing a balance sheet. The balance sheet has all the business assets and liabilities listed by category.

Publish Date: 20060918

Purdue University 1997 Swine Research Report. Hogs have traditionally been raised on independent farms in which most of the needed services were provided by that farm. Resources included ownership of all hogs and facilities, land, labor, management, and risk taking. In addition, the type of production facilities and specific management practices such as the nutrition,…

Publish Date: 20060918

Purdue University 1997 Swine Research Report. The first step in any knowledge-based evaluation of your operation is to understand your own system. Are you measuring production accurately? Are pigs accounted for accurately in each stage of production? Are all purchases and sales recorded and passed through farm record systems in a timely fashion? Do physical…

Publish Date: 20060918

Purdue University 1999 Swine Research Report. Years ago, when there were many small farms, farmers were encouraged to diversify. With todays larger operations, there is more specialization and greater concentration in agriculture. For example, the largest 10 broiler companies account for 70 percent of the production and processing (Schrader et al., 1997). Increasing specialization and…

Publish Date: 20060918

Purdue University 1999 Swine Research Report. The pork production industry continues to change rapidly. The Midwestern hog production industry, in particular, is experiencing a dramatically changing organizational structure due in part to an increasing cost competitiveness as the industry trends towards larger scales of production, increasingly specialized production, and production utilizing the best advantages technology…

Publish Date: 20060907

Kansas State University Swine Research. Use of feed budgets simplifies feed delivery and improves the accuracy of delivering diets to the correct pig weight ranges during the nursery and finishing periods. Little information has been available for determining farm-specific feed budgets in the past. In this paper, we will outline simple methods to customize a…