Robert Bowditch – Beef and Dairy farmer from Dorset

FarmWorks by Shearwell Data has helped our business immensely, we run two separate dairy herds, and we rear all the young stock from the dairy herd to either strong stores or finish them right through.

First of all we use the program to register the animals with BCMS, we then use the program to do the BSPS claims, we then produce management reports - which is most useful for when picking out stores, picking out fat cattle, and we use it for the movement book - which is always up-to-date and on hand.

The NLMD has a use for our business, I am a great person for trying to co-operate with other farmers, and I feel if we can put all our information with other farmers, then we can get into benchmarking. The beef and the sheep industry is behind the dairy industry as far as benchmarking is concerned, with the dairy we already do that adding profit to our business.

I see no problem with the security of the database with regards to my business. As long as it is understood very clearly that information isn’t given away with my name on it from that database, without my permission, I see no problem with it at all. It has got to be understood that it is for farmers’ use, it’s going to be beneficial to them and all the information is going to be from the farmers.