THE Boot Camp for Young Farmers pilot program delivered across Victoria last week has been two years in the making.
The first day was at Sale, Gippsland, on Monday last week, with about 35 young farmers attending.
Economist Bill Malcolm helped attendees to understand budgeting and financial management.
"My message today is if you want to be in the top 20 per cent of farmers you need to understand that risk creates return," Mr Malcolm said.
"As you increase your farm business it becomes more complex and more risky but you'll also increase returns.
"If you don't want any risk, don't go farming."
Mr Malcolm discussed variable and fixed costs, what they were and how to manage them in the budget.
He said the factors that affected the debt:equity ratio in a livestock business were turnoff rate and price and calving or lambing percentages - in other words, the things that created income.
"Therefore, if the reproduction rate of the herd is ordinary, concentrate on improving it," he said.
"Farmers are really good at the technical activities on the farm: cropping, lambing, making sure things that should occur do when they are supposed to, like shearing, fencing and drenching.
"They also need to be good at making decisions and managing risk.
"A budget helps to do both those things."
Other presentations during the day were on social media and succession planning.
Key organisers were from the Victorian Government, Australian Wool Innovation, Meat & Livestock Australia and the Victorian Farmers Federation.
Australian experience
AUSTRALIA has the second-highest number of young farmers in the developed world and one of the youngest populations in farming globally.
That is good news for people in the industry and those wanting to be farmers.
The industry also needs to stop talking about how there are "no young farmers in the industry in Australia", because this is incorrect and disheartening.
Those were the messages from social researcher Neil Barr at last week's young farmers' boot camps at Sale, Bendigo and Hamilton.
Mr Barr said there were 75,000 farmers under 35 years old in 1976 and 20,000 in 2011 but the reduced number was not alarming.
"What is important is the proportion of farmers who are young, not the number," he said.
"The proportion of young farmers hasn't changed as dramatically as that."
He pointed out that New Zealand was the country with the largest number of young farmers "but they only beat us because so many of their young farmers are dairyfarmers".
"Australia is one of the youngest populations in the farming sector globally," Mr Barr said.
"In Australia, 14 per cent of our farmers are aged under 35.
"In NZ it is 18pc, in Poland it is 12pc, in Canada 9pc and in the US 5pc."
Mr Barr said the conversation Australia should be having was in relation to the largest 10-20pc of Victorian farms and the farm demographics.
"Those large farms produce more than half the value of Victoria's agricultural production and those large farms are where young people tend to be working," Mr Barr said.
"Most people in farming these days get into it because of intergenerational transfer.
"If your farming business is not large enough to support two generations it's much less likely someone will take over.
"If your farm is large, then the younger person is generally producing the greater proportion of the output and they are often the manager - but that data gets hidden in the population census, which recognises the older generation as the owners or those with the largest equity stake in the farm.
"And the data gets overwhelmed with the number of people who own small farms that don't deliver the same level of agricultural output."
