The author and developer of FarmManager is Dr. John Bircham - B.Agr.Sc.; M.Agr.Sc. (Hons); Ph.D, a graduate of Massey University (New Zealand) and Edinburgh University (Scotland).

His career as research scientist began in the late 1960s, when he was appointed to the position of Field Research Officer for the Southern Hawkes Bay and Wairarapa regions in New Zealand.  He was the Officer responsible for the Masterton Field research Area (East Taratahi Road, Masterton) and the research undertaken both there and in the region's hill country. 

In the mid 1970s, he relocated to the Whatawhata Hill Country Research Station and then a few years later to the Hill Farming Research Organization in Midlothian, Scotland, where he undertook his Ph.D. studies. Upon completion of his studies, he returned to Whatawhata for a number of years.

His seminal work on the pasture-animal interface, herbage tissue flows, ruminant grazing behaviour and productivity has stood the test time, being as relevant today as it was when he completed his Ph.D. studies. Upon his return to Whatawhata, he developed a number of landmark models based upon his knowledge and understanding of the pasture-animal interface. The most notable of these was a general model for ruminant pasture intake, a model that has stood the test of time, as has another model that he developed, which describes the relationship between incident rainfall and soil moisture on steep and rolling sloping land.

After resigning his position as a scientist at Whatawhata, he developed and marketed the first commercially available pasture growth predictor for New Zealand, followed by the prototype to FarmManager, before becoming for a decade or so, an organizational systems analyst and developer. He developed an interest in organization risk, compliance and resiliency, an interest that led to him to speaking, teaching and consultancy engagements for many years in Australia, Canada,  United Kingdom & Europe.

FarmManager's focus is on using technology to gain knowledge and understanding through experience, not only of the potential impacts and consequences of on-farm strategy, resource utilization, etc., but also events, situations and circumstances that could emerge in the future from the increasingly VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world, in which we are all embedded. It embodies the author's deep knowledge and understanding of pastoral ecosystems, enterprise risk and resilience; from the necessity of rain and sunshine to power them and their production of food, to the impact of human, societal, organizational beliefs/behaviours and the risk to pastoral enterprises of emerging geo-political/socio-economic views, demands and regulation.     

Resilience to adversity begins with awareness, and understanding of the possible, likely or inevitable impacts and consequences of events, circumstances, etc. on a dairy enterprise, irrespective of their source (climate, fire, land slip, etc.) event or cause (geo-political & socio-economic environment protection demands, etc.). By way of example, consider the impact of a flood, the product of a variable or long term change in climate, depositing the slash debris from a harvested forest on 20% of your highest producing pastures, and the almost inevitable consequence of at least six months elapsing before the former productivity of those pastures can be recovered. 

In summary, FarmManager is a tool that makes it possible for farm owners, managers and workers, consultants, accountants and bankers to explore in a trial and error, risk and consequence-free manner, on-farm strategic innovation, resource utilization/management and adverse high impact natural and geopolitical/socio-economic events. It also has the capability to transcend and rectify through simulated experience, both  inter-generational loss of knowledge and manager/worker ignorance, the outcome of lack of relevant experience/knowledge. It achieves this using simulation, in a manner not dissimilar to that employed by the Aviation industry, which is to immerse flight crew in  events and situations that most of them would be unlikely to ever encounter in their flying careers, and in doing this, providing them with invaluable experience and knowledge.

If you would like to know more, click the  Info menu option  to take a quick tour of FarmManager.