Understanding Your Farming Business
Understanding Your Farming Business (UYFB) equips women in the sheep, beef and dairy sectors with the skills and confidence to fully participate in their farming business.
Empowering women as Critical Farming Partners
Since 2016, AWDT has partnered with over 2,000 farming women through our highly valued Understanding Your Farming Business (UYFB) and Wāhine Māia, Wāhine Whenua programmes. These initiatives have helped women build their confidence, financial literacy, and influence in farming businesses.
In 2025 we refreshed the programme and delivered a pilot with the support of ANZ, Beef + Lamb New Zealand, and KPMG. The programme was relaunched in 2026.
Understanding Your Farming Business has 2 modules over 3 days covering:
- Module 1 – Production & Financials (2 days)
- Budgeting, KPI’s, benchmarking and overcoming barriers to new conversations
- Financial statements, assessing profitability, taxation, business structures and communication strategies
- Module 2 – Decision making & planning for the future (1 day)
- Action planning, decision making, navigating complexity, risk and long-term sustainability
There is also intermodule work between the modules to cement learning.
The UYFB programme covers:
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Farm financial literacy fundamentals
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Reading and interpreting farm accounts & bank statements
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Building confidence in conversations with banks
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Measuring and improving on-farm performance
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Linking financial and productivity metrics
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Benchmarking against industry standards
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Structured decision-making tools
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Strategies for navigating complexity
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Evaluating financial and market risks
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Aligning farm decisions with long-term sustainability goals
Understanding Your Farming Business is designed for women involved in or supporting sheep, beef or dairy farm business that want to learn more to increase their contribution.
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