On a recent Operation Flinders trip, one of the participants was off a farm and, once he found out I had the same background, we ended up having a few discussions about agriculture.

There is no doubt this young man is going to have a very successful career in agriculture – his passion for the industry was amazing.

I know lots of other people – young and old – that also really enjoy being involved in the agricultural sector; this trait is quite common.

He told me all about the different aspects of their particular farming operation, and it did indeed sound pretty impressive. His knowledge about certain enterprises on the farm was rock solid, and he was able to rattle off relevant information seemingly at will.

I have mates my age that sort of pretend they have gone off farming a bit, but nothing could be further from the truth. They are just as excited about farming as they always were.

It is really easy to listen to someone when they quite clearly enjoy what they do – their energy and positivity is infectious.

The piece of advice I gave to this young aspiring agribusiness owner was, the sooner you get a handle on the numbers and what the profit drivers are in your business, the better.

Every business has certain activities that ultimately determine the profitability of the enterprise overall. This is no different in an agribusiness setting.

According to the GRDC website, the four key profit drivers for a farming business are gross margin optimisation, developing a low cost business model, people and management, and risk management.

These core concepts should be ingrained into every agribusiness owner’s psyche as soon as possible, and be constantly referred to. I am not an expert in any of these areas, but there are multiple advisors and other resources that have the answers.

These key drivers are pretty intuitive, so once these are embedded into their subconscious, most people will normally come to the correct conclusions.

When an agribusiness owner gets comfortable with the concept that nurturing these four key profit drivers will more than likely put them in the top 20 per cent of producers, it should become habitual thinking.

This doesn’t mean you need to get obsessive about it, though perhaps you might.

Nonetheless, it should become an integral part of your planning process after a while. You are more likely to seek out other producers that think the same way, and some great alliances are likely to be formed, and who knows where that can take the agribusiness concerned.

By all means continue with the passion you have about certain aspects of the farming operation, but don’t lose sight of the key drivers of the business.

If this is done, it is very likely the business will be most enjoyable, profitable, and very satisfying.

Enjoy what you do, and do it well!