Building scalable systems for stronger farm businesses

Sally Turner, the MLA-supported recipient of a 2026 Nuffield Scholarship, wants to see a shift in how producers approach their farm admin. Her vision is for producers to no longer view the bookwork as a mundane but necessary task, but rather a strategic tool that can drive greater efficiency and business productivity.

She plans to use the international travel opportunities offered as part of her scholarship to gather examples of how businesses around the world are successfully harnessing optimised and scalable administration systems and tools.

Seeing the value in admin 

Sally’s research proposal stood out as a unique and timely topic due to its alignment with the National Farmers’ Federation 2030 Roadmap goals around financial literacy, digital adoption and governance reform. 

Her research topic, ‘Reframing farm administration: mindset, skills and systems for resilient, profitable ag businesses’ caught the eye of the judges.

“I was pleased MLA saw value in administration – I’m used to people thinking admin is a bit of a boring topic for agriculture,” she said. 

A change in mindset 

Sally is an agricultural consultant and producer at Trundle, NSW, where she and her husband David run a self-replacing Merino flock, produce prime lambs and grow cereal crops. This means Sally has plenty of experience of farm management, both in the paddock and in the office. 

Through her consultancy work at Ag Opti Systems, she helps farm businesses fine-tune their work health and safety, human resources, administration, data management and bookkeeping. 

“A lot of people think that to be productive, you have to get stuck into jobs in the yards and that if you’re in the office, you’re not really working,” she said.

“I want to encourage people to see that efficient administrative systems are actually of high value to a business.”

Skill building 

Sally explained that by upskilling in areas like financial literacy, producers will have a better understanding of their numbers and what they are telling them.

“That’s a huge step – even general admin skills are helpful. Many producers are running productive, multimillion dollar business and need to run them as such,” Sally said. 

“It can be wise to outsource or bring an employee in to help fill any knowledge or skill gaps in a business.” 

Scalable systems

Sally and her husband prioritise solid systems and procedures in their business to maximise efficiency and productivity.

“We plan our tasks rather than just doing them randomly. It could be scaling our revenue and profits and using systems to make our business more efficient, which helps us see where we might be missing opportunities,” Sally said.

An example is their business communication processes, which include weekly meetings as well as dedicated strategic, quarterly meetings. 

“This helps us build focus, so we’re not just juggling 10,000 things at once. We have weekly, monthly but also a more overall, strategic focus at the various types of meetings we hold,” Sally said.

Fixing inefficiencies 

Sally has implemented accurate, streamlined inventories which have improved efficiencies in the yards in a practical way. This includes storing required equipment at the sheep yards so it’s easily accessible and ensuring spare products are on-hand. 

“Simple things like this reduce stress, save time and let you focus on getting the job done,” she said.

Personal growth 

While the Nuffield travel component will take her away from her business, Sally sees the opportunity to focus on her personal growth as something that will pay dividends in the long run.

“Being willing to step outside my comfort zone and go and talk to other people from around the world about their businesses and systems will equip me with so many skills that I can bring back home with me,” she said.

“Our business is in a growth phase, so it will be challenging having me away overseas, but it’s also forced me to think about how we can run the business more efficiently while I’m away.”

An international perspective 

Sally is keen to investigate international examples of good business administration and how governments support producers to upskill. For example, in the UK, producers get a tax rebate if they complete financial literacy training, while here in Australia, electronic National Vendor Declaration (eNVD) and Livestock Production Assurance (LPA) provide opportunities to improve business data collection. 

“Rather than seeing them as just extra required paperwork, they can be an opportunity to improve livestock businesses.”