Profitable Grazing Systems Supported Learning Package Delivery Summary Report

Summary

Profitable Grazing Systems - Vision

A financially sustainable adoption program aligned to the MLA 2020 targets that extends MLA R&D outputs and achieves increased producer skills and capability, practice change and whole farm business improvement through increasing producer understanding of: Business profit = management capability + evidence + value chain approach

Profitable Grazing Systems (PGS) is MLA's adoption program which will drive measurable, improved business performance outcomes for participating red meat producers. The program will use a supported learning methodology to develop the skills of red meat producers and support implementation of these new skills into businesses, improving profitability and productivity. Profitable Grazing Systems builds on previous red meat industry extension and adoption programs including Making More from Sheep and More Beef from Pastures, and will have a focus on achieving adoption through high quality delivery underpinned by robust monitoring evaluation and a commercial approach.

PGS Guiding Principles

The PGS program will:

1. support producers adopting practices that deliver whole farm business performance improvements through evidence  driven decision making, embracing a culture of monitoring and measuring and managing
2. be driven by market outcomes and encouraging industry to be customer focussed
3. work with producers that are willing to invest in improved business performance and professional development
4. support capacity and capability building of the service sector to enable development and delivery of effective, high quality, regionally adapted supported learning programs using sustainable, commercial business models
5. be built on robust monitoring and evaluation systems to enable skill development, practice change and industry impact to be measured
6. complement and value-add to existing programs and services
7. provide commercial value to both producers and deliverers (user pays)
8. provide extension of MLA beef, sheep and goat research and development outputs, and utilise previous extension programs and packages.

Deliverery 
The Profitable Grazing Systems program (Program) is MLA's flagship adoption program which aims to drive measurable, improved business performance outcomes for participating red meat producers (Producers). The Program uses a supported learning methodology to develop the skills of Producers and to support implementation of these new skills into businesses.

The Program provides an opportunity for service providers who are focused on making a measurable difference to the business performance of Producers through the delivery of high quality, high value extension and adoption programs that build Producer skills and support practice change.

MLA has agreed to engage the Delivery Organisation to develop and deliver supported learning projects (SLPs) to Producers as part of the Program, and the Delivery Organisation has agreed to accept the engagement on the terms set out in this agreement.

MLA will recieve all M&E data from Deliverer and record this data to monitor progress of the PGS program.

Objectives

PGS Program Objectives

The overarching objective of the PGS program is to encourage and support red meat producers to improve their management skills, to increase profit. The program objectives to be completed by 2022 are:

• To increase the average profitability of participating red meat producers by 2.5% ROAM by improving their skills and capability. A commercial model which involves user pays for the private good component of the activity (generally the delivery), with MLA contributing a maximum of 30% of the delivery cost of supported leaning projects.
• 5,000 producers attend feeder activities with 10 -15% of them going on to participate in a supported learning program.
• 2,900 producers participate in supported learning programs to increase their skills and knowledge:2150 producers increase their skills and knowledge above a skills audit score of 75% (competent);
• 50 deliverers have increased capability to a point where they can deliver effective high quality supported learning programs;
• Increase the average confidence rating of participating producers to use key skill sets or do key tasks to greater than 8/10;
• At least 70% of participating producers have made practice changes underpinned by a change in skills.