QMS Launches Two New Grazing Benchmarking Groups

Quality Meat Scotland (QMS) has launched “Graze+”, a new grazing initiative for livestock farmers keen to benchmark their business performance data in order to improve their productivity and performance from rotational grazing.

Aimed at farmers who have some experience in rotational grazing, this three-year project is free to join and will help group members build on their existing knowledge and experience to help them improve their grazing management. 

Managed by its own members and facilitated by QMS, there will be two “Graze+” groups - one based in the North of Scotland and one in the South. The main emphasis of each group, which will meet four times each year, is physical and financial benchmarking to improve their outputs from grass. 

Using shared benchmarked data, the group members will be able to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of their own grazing management systems and compare them with other group members. They will then have the opportunity to visit group members’ farms and identify potential improvements they could make on their own farms.

The two new QMS “Graze+” groups will run alongside the new QMS “Better Grazing” programme, which will have six regional groups across Scotland. The “Better Grazing” programme is aimed for those keen to learn more about improving their grazing management, while the “Graze+” project is more suitable for those livestock farmers who have already taken steps to improve their grassland management and are keen to progress further.

The first meetings of the two “Graze+” Groups will be held at the end of August and Emily Grant, QMS Knowledge Transfer Specialist, is encouraging farmers keen to take grazing management to the next step, to get involved.

“Feedback from farmers who attended the QMS Grazing Groups which ended in April this year indicated many were interested in looking at grazing management in more detail. They were also keen to analyse the financial impact of the changes they had made to their own grazing strategies,” said Mrs Grant.

“The opportunity to benchmark and share experiences and learning from other farmers in the Graze+ programme is set to be a hugely valuable way to help these farmers continue to progress.”  

Due to the benchmarking element of the initiative, the number of members in each of the “Graze +” groups will be limited. Group members will also be required to meet some key requirements which include agreeing to undertake financial and KPI benchmarking, and to share results within the group. Group members should also be prepared to make changes to their own farming system to improve productivity and attend at least three Graze + meetings a year. 

Initial meetings are set to take place in Perth on August 22nd and Moffat on August 23rd. If you would like more information about these groups and are interested in joining, please contact Emily Grant, QMS Knowledge Transfer Specialist on 07843 281129 or email egrant@qmscotland.co.uk