KLRS’s Rod Knight, Grahame Rees and Jim Lindsay.

A new course has been developed to address the need for financial literacy training for Australian livestock producers.

The KLR Marketing School team of Rod Knight, Jim Lindsay and Grahame Rees developed the course after their extensive travels around rural Australia identified a need to help producers prepare and put into action a “bank ready” business plan.

Their first financial skills workshop was held in Tamworth in May and the second course, being held in Longreach this week, has sold out.

“This is not something that we dreamed up this year,” Grahame Rees told Beef Central.

“It has been five years in development, putting it to practical use in our own businesses, spending time with agribusiness managers to find out what they are looking for.”

He said the three-day courses are designed to equip producers with the skills to prepare their own financial statement of position, stock flows and budgets, and to develop plans they can present to their bank managers with confidence.

“Attempting to answer your bank managers questions without essential financial literacy can be the difference between getting the loan you need or not, and with many people struggling and uncertain about their future in the industry, financially literacy was the next logical step,” he said.

Mr Rees said a key part of the workshop is that everyone breaks away from the main group in order to work on their own business.

“This is done with complete privacy and confidentiality so that no-one ever shares their own personal information, and that includes the presenters as well.”

The next workshop is likely to be in Bathurst, NSW, Mr Rees said. More information about KLR’s ‘Business Ready’ workshops and course costs can be found at at this link.