Planning the volume of purchases of fertilizers, plant protection products and seeds

In the activity of any agro-enterprise, its material and technical provision with resources plays an important role, which is one of the defining directions of development. Calculations of the need for materials are carried out in advance through the planning of material and technical provision, and its development involves a thorough justification, since the implementation of the production program of the entire economy depends on this. In addition, the planned volumes of supplies of materials are the basis for determining the prospects for production and further sales of products.

Material costs during the performance of field work account for up to 50 % of all production costs of the enterprise. Material requirements planning is based on the production program and the achieved indicators of yields of the past season, taking into account the frequency of supply of resources and their quality. Further, a logistics plan is designed and technological maps are prescribed for the introduction of new agricultural machinery and field works, the consumption rates of raw materials and materials, as well as production stocks and actual balances of material resources in the warehouse are specified.

In the technological maps of the Soft.Farm web service, it is possible to plan the amount of material costs for growing a particular crop in a certain area. Such maps are compiled for each crop for one field or group of fields. In them you can see what operations need to be performed, in what sequence and with what frequency, how much time was spent on each operation and what tools are needed for this. When creating technological maps, labor costs are planned, the cost of fuels and lubricants is calculated, and other costs for third-party services are provided. A separate block provides for the costs of seeds, fertilizers and plant protection products during each technological operation, taking into account the application rate, volume of work, quantity of materials and their cost.

After the approval of the technological maps, the entered data form the «Need for Materials» module. It can be searched using filters by department, season, geofence, material type or crop. To use the information obtained in further work, it is possible to export them to excel or print immediately. In modern conditions, plans act as a means of ensuring the proportionality and regularity of production, and on the basis of planning the requirements for materials, most logistics systems have been developed and are functioning. Untimely provision of materials leads to a decrease in productivity, because the deadlines for performing technological operations are violated and planned processes are interrupted. As you know, buying in bulk is more profitable, so meeting material requirements in advance, maintaining reasonable inventory levels, scheduling deliveries and preparing purchasing operations directly affect the efficiency of the use of material resources and help save money.

Material resources are one of the main elements of production potential. Since they are transformed into material costs, their cost and quantity have a direct impact on the cost of production. That is why an important functional component of the activity of an agricultural enterprise is the optimization of material resource management at the planning stage.