The very mention of the words “farm assurance inspection” are likely met with with feelings of stress, frustration and anxiety. In fact, a poll taken by The Farming Forum found over 80% of farmers find inspections significantly stressful or their main cause of stress on the farm. That said, we all have to comply and there are tools that can help make your life easier – and the inspector’s too.
This article will go through the ways fieldmargin can be used to help rid yourself of the dreaded “audit anxiety” – from the small things you can do day-to-day to the last minute preparation – hopefully these tips and tricks will help make the process a little smoother for everyone involved.
Things to do throughout the year
There are plenty of small, achievable things you can do throughout the year which can help reduce the long list of jobs often left until the very last minute.
Recording Field Jobs
While most inspectors probably won’t be all that interested in hearing all about how well your new drill is performing, they will be taking a thorough look through your pesticide and nutrient applications. You can log these throughout the growing season as Field Jobs and generate reports to easily show what inputs have been applied to which fields.
Spraying Jobs
When creating Field Jobs for pesticide applications, there are a few things you can do to ensure you remain compliant, including:
- Selecting products from the Pesticide Database (the ones with the green shield next to them) so that the actives, registration number and type are included.
- Adding input application rates – you can change if you want to work in hectares (default) or acres via Farm Settings.
Fertiliser Jobs
- When adding fertilisers to Field Jobs, make sure to enter the nutrient contents so you can track how much is applied each year.
Completing Field Jobs
When you’ve completed the spray or fertiliser application, make sure to fill out all information required to maintain compliant, including:
- Start and finish times
- Weather conditions
- Wind speed & direction
- Who completed the job
You can do this one-by-one, or complete records in bulk using Operator View, where you can enter the information for one, some or all of the fields in a job at one time.
Using Notes
Notes are for the day-to-day recording of information – they can be a reminder of information you might want to refer back to later on, or attached to fields, features, herds or a specific location. You can attach files, upload pictures and use comments to discuss with your team. Here are a few ways you can use notes:
- Recording when crop inspections have been done
- Mark high/low performing areas
- Monitoring crop establishment
- Drenching, shearing and herd treatment details
Using Tasks to create bespoke records
While Field Jobs record work completed specifically on fields, Notes which are marked as a ‘To-do’ create tasks and can be created for a variety of other farm jobs. For example, you could map grain stores and silos as Features then attach tasks to them to create a history of maintenance and cleaning records.
Recording measurements using Data Monitoring Sites
Set up data monitoring sites for places on your farm where you take regular measurements – here are a few ways users are collecting farm data:
- Grain store moisture and temperature readings
- Soil sample results
- Rain gauge readings
- Plate meter readings
- Insect and pest counts
- Stock/ inventory counts
In the lead up to audit
Once you’ve been notified of your audit, all you need to do is gather your farm reports generated in fieldmargin – these can be exported into PDFs and spreadsheets, or you can print a physical copy.
Exporting Crop Records
Key reports such as the nutrient and field input reports can be downloaded into a spreadsheet ahead of time. For some audits, such as Red Tractor, you can upload documentation before the inspection for the auditor to look through, before they’ve even set foot on farm.
You can also download all your Field Jobs as a spreadsheet, which has further information on such as completion time and date, who completed the job and input details.
Exporting Herd History
Your herd history shows where a herd has been over time, including when they moved into a field and when they were removed to go somewhere else as well as any notes attached to that herd. You can print a physical copy of your herd history, or download a PDF.
The History tab for each field will also have information on which herds were grazed at which time, plus details of grazing and rest days. This can also be downloaded into a PDF or printed.
During the Audit
If you need to provide evidence of specific records which are kept in fieldmargin, you can pull these up quickly using the search bar and filters in the Activity List and use fieldmargin as a point of reference throughout your inspection. From the Activity List, you can also download/ print:
If you have any questions or need help getting started, get in touch with our friendly support team via support@fieldmargin.com.