CANEGROWERS Business Essentials For Growers

What is Business Essentials?

Tools and knowledge to help build a more profitable business

CANEGROWERS Business Essentials program provides hands-on tools for growers, provided through a series of workshops.

Workshops are suitable for all skill and confidence levels, and this year will be provided FREE of charge.

The pathway to a resilient farming business future is riddled with risk. This doesn’t mean that your goals shouldn’t be pursued. Improve your chances of success with strategic thinking and find ways to tweak your game plan.

CANEGROWERS has developed a series of workshops and webinars that are designed to allow more flexibility and easier time commitment. Our sessions have something for everyone and growers that have attended in the past say the benefit from attending has been invaluable, assisting them to plan and address blind spots they had and filled any information gaps.

For our 2025 workshops and webinars we are excited to include a training partner with deep experience in guiding farmers and organisations from a range of sectors including cotton, grain, horticulture, and dairy. The sessions will include topics such as HR management (how to attract and retain talent), and WH&S (how to get started and build a great system that works for you). The series will also include sessions on sugar pricing strategy and sugarcane specific topics to reinforce your industry knowledge.

Building a professional business
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Setting goals, developing strategy and managing the risks you haven’t thought of!

People management
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Attracting the right people, getting the legal stuff right, and working with family.

Workplace health and safety
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Where do we start and stop? What are our obligations?

Sugar pricing strategy
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How to cut through the information and make sound decisions.

Sugar industry knowledge
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What is relative payment? What’s CCS anyway?

Taking your bookkeeping to the next level
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Should I do my own BAS?

Returning to your district in May 2025

Round two of our workshop series will commence in May and provide two additional half-day workshops. These will not rely on past attendance so anyone can sign up to join these sessions. The workshops will cover:

  • Farm bookkeeping – process and procedures to prepare your Business Activity Statement
  • Industry knowledge and managing your sugar pricing risk – a session that will dive into CCS, relative payment, cane price determination, and a focus on the sugar market with a framework for managing sugar pricing risk

The following dates are planned: 

  • Mon 12 May – Mackay
  • Tues 13 May – Proserpine
  • Thu 22 May – Isis/Bundaberg (in Childers)
  • Wed 28 May – Tully
  • Thu 29 May – Cairns Region (in Gordonvale)*
  • Wed 4 June – Burdekin 

* date may shift to Friday TBC

Webinar series to commence

The webinar series that aims to supplement the workshops with key topics will commence on Tues 20 May as follows:

  • 12 Noon - Tues 20 May
    Farm Safety – Ensuring people aren’t injured (or worse!) on your farm & WHS meeting legal requirements
  • 12 Noon - Tues 27 May
    Managing People & building a great team… legally and operationally… including contractors
  • 12 Noon - Tues 3 June
    Communication, conflict and working with different people – even if it’s just your family
  • 12 Noon - Tues 10 June
    Cyber Risk and Business Continuity – ensuring you aren’t hacked or scammed online and able to continue your business in the event of adversity

This program is jointly funded through the Australian Government's Future Drought Fund and the Queensland Government's Drought and Climate Adaption Program