Female farmers learn about farm business management
Members of the Women's Discussion Group discussing farm business management.
A Women's Discussion Group (WDG) was trialled for the first time in Cijeruk , Bogor, where several topics were chosen relevant to the local conditions in Cijeruk .
This group was set up to cater more specifically to the needs of women in dairy farming as a place to share and discuss their challenges.
Farm business management and understanding of how to calculate farm profit was chosen as a discussion topic. One member, Bu Kokom , was very enthusiastic about how to calculate farm profit. Before joining the discussion group she was collecting some farm records, but it was only limited to the amount of concentrate she fed the cows. Bu Kokom acknowledged,
"For the farm I only recorded milk production and the amount of concentrate and I didn't know about the usefulness of other records to calculate profit. After joining the WDG discussion I learned how to calculate profit from understanding sources of income and also the production costs incurred”.
“Since this topic I have recorded costs and income in the book provided for two months, which has helped me to analyse the profit. So now I know how much my profit is per litre. My hope going forward is that I will be more diligent in keeping records after the group has finished”, said Ibu Kokom .
“I learnt that great dairy farmers are those who make money (profit) by implementing the best technical skills on the farm", she recalled from the information discussed during the group.