Fonterra And Red Sky Assisting Farmers

Fonterra And Red Sky Assisting Farmers

For immediate release
June 1, 2003

Fonterra and Red Sky assisting farmers with greater financial understanding

Fonterra and Red Sky Agricultural have signed a joint venture agreement to provide a new financial performance analysis software package to Fonterra suppliers.

The new software will enable dairy farmers to benchmark their financial performance and identify areas where they might improve their business. "Red Sky Farm Performance Analysis collects all financial information from farmers and presents it in a format that benchmarks each farmer against a national database," says David Beca, Managing Director for Red Sky.

"While there are other products out there that measure farm performance, they are not able to be jointly used by farmers, accountants and consultants nor available to accept information from a number of sources, whereas this software is able to do just that."

Fonterra's on-farm productivity technology leader Mark Leslie sees many benefits.

"Fonterra's Fencepost.com site only has milk data available to analyse at the moment. If a farmer is able to match milk data with other physical performance data and their financial data they will be able to not only see how well they are doing - but view the financial analysis that backs this as well," says Mr Leslie.

"Fonterra will provide access to Red Sky, and the performance analysis software is downloadable from Fencepost.com."

Additional benefits from this software include the ability to analyse future management options or development scenarios to discuss with a business partner, accountant or consultant.

The software is already out in the market and Fonterra and Red Sky believe that the more suppliers that become a part of this, the more beneficial it will be to everyone involved in the long term.

"The benefits of this joint venture are about Fonterra continuing to facilitate the on-farm 3% productivity gains," says Mr Leslie.

ENDS

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