Grower Group Alliance, in collaboration with Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA), will deliver a free training series as part of the Capacity Building Program for 2026.

Two ‘Train the Trainer’ workshops will be run, a one-day workshop delivering the Business Essentials and Dollar Making Decisions PGS’, and a second one-day workshop delivering the BredWell FedWell PGS.

The third activity will be available to advisors the day before MLA’s MeatUp event, offering an AI in livestock professional development opportunity.

About the PGS Topics

Profitable Grazing Systems (PGS) is a group-based training program which uses supported learning packages (SLPs) to deliver training and coaching over several months and up to a year to improve producer skills and knowledge.

Through PGS, participants have the opportunity to develop and practice skills with small groups of like-minded producers to improve business performance.

Business Essentials

This training package is designed to take the business skills of livestock producers to the next level.

It builds on the knowledge gained in earlier training programs, such as MLA’s Business EDGE.

Participants will learn how to conduct detailed business analysis to help drive profit and productivity and to have greater control over their business. It is also designed to better prepare producers for dealing with accountants, banks, lending institutions and government authorities.

What you will learn

• the fundamentals of good bookkeeping
• how to calculate accurately your gross profit, gross margins, and net profit to understand performance
• how to use a cash flow budget and monitor monthly cash flow
• how to implement your own financial management system.

Designed to be delivered in five group sessions and one follow-up one-on-one session, this package can be delivered over five consecutive days or over two weeks or if need be, because of geographic location or trainer preference, over a longer period.

Participants work with their own data on their own devices to ensure relevance to their business.

Dollar Making Decisions

Most producers have a never ending ‘wish list’ of improvements to be made or items to be purchased for their farm. How do you decide which investment has the best return? Or what priority do you give to different investments? This package is designed to train you in applying a rational and repeatable process to weighing up on-farm investment decisions.

What you will learn

• the effect of capital allocation efficacy on farm business wealth creation
• the time value of money
• how to identify key sources of farm business capital and understand their differences
• how to identify key farm business activities competing for capital
• how to conduct, analyse and interpret a partial budget
• to differentiate between competing on farm investments
• how to conduct and interpret a sensitivity analysis to assess the threshold values of key assumptions whereby the investment is no longer viable.

Assessing the economic benefit of on-farm investment opportunities quickly and confidently is an important skill for farm managers focused on improving profitability.

The returns generated from on-farm investments have a large influence on the operating returns of farm business over time.

Typically, farm managers who generate high operating returns take a disciplined approach to decisions surrounding on-farm capital allocation. This approach requires understanding important concepts including:

• budgeting
• management accounting
• marginal analysis including partial budgeting
• risk assessment.

This Train the Trainer workshop day will upskill members of the GGA Network to deliver the Profitable Grazing Systems programs: Business Essentials and Dollar Making Decisions.