Plans can be used to model a future state/direction for a farm. By using the OverseerFM farm impact report, the plan can be compared to the current state (year end) to show the changes that the farm intends on making in the coming years.
A guide to creating a plan in OverseerFM
Create a copy of a the year end that represents the farm's current state. Select the analysis type as Predictive and then select the year that you want the analysis to be the plan for.
Alternatively if you already have predictive analyses that you want to turn into a plan select the "Modify" button on the analyses and add a year to the analysis.
Once a year is added to the predictive analysis the analysis will be displayed in a "Plan" section of the analysis list - see below.
After creating the plan, changes can be made that represent the future state. This can be done manually, by editing the plan; by using the scenario tool to make changes or by a combination of both. The scenario tool helps you keep any changes to consistent with the energy and feed requirements of the animals.
One source of excellent information about which mitigations may be useful to implement on a farm is the work done by Our Land and Water on Actions to Include in a Farm Environment Plan
At any time you can compare the current state (year end) with this future state (plan) to see what impact it has on results and what changes are required over time. To do this;
- Select the "Reports" tab
- Within the "Farm summary" tab select the "Select base analysis" button
- Select a base analysis (in this case the original year end analysis that was copied to become the plan)
- A comparison between the base analysis and the plan is displayed. This shows the difference between the base analysis and the current analysis (in this case the plan).
- The comparison can be viewed at any time when changing the plan.
- Select the "Farm Impact Report" button on the top right to print a report, either to paper or as a pdf, that you can include in a Farm Plan / Farm Environment Plan / Integrated Farm Plan / FEP. To select a different analysis as a base for comparison, click on the "Change base analysis" button
- The Farm Impact Report now contains some commentary of the changes between the two analyses which are being compared - this is auto generated by the software.
- a simplification of the N and P budgets is also provided.
- Where "Actions for a plan" have been added to an analysis in the Comments section, these will show in the Farm Impact report (see helpdesk article Adding comments to an an analysis )
- The farm impact report, can printed or exported as a PDF to be included in farm plan.
