Planning your farm business start-up Mayo workshop

By Anne O’ Malley, advisory and options coordination, Teagasc Mayo

TEAGASC, in collaboration with the Local Enterprise Office (LEO) Mayo, are combining resources to host a two-day workshop, 'Planning Your Farm Business Start-up', on Wednesday and Thursday, February 22 and 23, in Breaffy House Hotel, Castlebar, F23 R253, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Workshops are free of charge but prior booking is essential.

Padraig Considine, Professional Accounting Solutions (PAS) Limited, is the LEO Mayo mentor for this collaborative two-day workshop.

As Padraig outlines: “At PAS Limited, due to our experience and extensive work carried out in starting up a business and advising on doing so, we are familiar with the issues and problems people must deal with when starting up a business. Many of these problems we deal with daily within our accountancy practice.

“With all training courses and mentoring assignments, we always include practical case studies, experiences, and real-life scenarios as part of the delivery.”

This two-day workshop is a great opportunity to focus on:

* Equipping participants with an action plan or process to develop their business idea and a business plan roadmap to guide them through the start-up phase.

* Navigating obstacles and investing in business structure and getting it right first time.

* Focus on practical steps and understanding of self-employment and farm business finance.

* Financial management and accounting in starting-up and running a diversification business.

* Help participants to build an effective business plan to communicate and compete for business supports.

* Carbon footprint and farm diversification and how your business aligns with economic, social and environmental sustainability climate targets.

In the current economic climate the need to diversify is borne out of necessity to add an additional income stream to the farm business to manage increasing costs and to provide options for future financial security. There is no shortage of farm diversification ideas but the big challenge is the practical steps or pointers to analyse and develop your business idea to see is it a viable and sustainable option for you and your farm.

The process or work of exploring and development of a business idea is a good use of time and may save time in the long term. An idea is just an idea until you start developing a business plan, do the market research, analysis of start-up costs, operating costs, cash flow, risks, competition and potential pitfalls. The new business has to make money but getting your new business to generate cash is the real challenge.

The planning process may result in you looking at your existing farming business operation to see how it complements your new business and how to better or further utilise your skills and resources or identify a need to up-skill. Making time for important tasks like developing your business involves managing your time more effectively and may result in prioritising efficiency on and off-farm.

The positive story is that farm diversification supports sustainability and will be a key factor in agriculture meeting climate targets.

Contact your local Teagasc Office for further details of this workshop at Ballina (096 22077), Ballinrobe (094 9541125), Claremorris (094 9371360), Westport (098 28333) or book your place visit the LEO link: https://www.localenterprise.ie/Mayo/Training-Events/Online-Bookings/Planning-your-Farm-Business-Start-up-22nd-Feb.html