importance of-statistics in agricultural enterprises /opinion piece

Dear readers, in agricultural production systems, a series of processes are managed that can be affected by various variables and these variables can influence the productivity of the business. Some managers do not keep records of the operations carried out inside and outside the production systems, therefore they do not have truthful information that allows them to make rational and scientific decisions, unaware of the probabilities of certain variations occurring at any given time.

On the basis of these premises, it is necessary that the owners and managers of the agricultural enterprises carry out registers and implement statistical tools that adapt to their possibilities to be able to solve of an efficient dawn the possible problems that arise in the company and to achieve effectively position itself in the agri-food market.

In that sense, who manages an agribusiness must manage effective information, currently there is a diversity of livestock software to keep records of production, reproduction, feeding, inventory of animals among other functions, This information must be processed statistically and analyzed by specialists in the field such as veterinarians and agricultural engineers, with the help of computer professionals who know the correct functioning of these tools. Companies that do not carry out this type of activity run the risk of losing competitive capacity in their area of action and therefore their existence due to the mismanagement of their resources.

To achieve the above, it would be necessary to train the owners and managers of the companies on the importance of collecting and analyzing information concerning the agro-productive processes that allow them to plan, organize, monitor and evaluate business development activities with a view to increasing profitability, improving the quality of agricultural products, optimizing processes and increasing competitiveness in the agricultural market.

Consequently, the implementation of statistical thinking in agribusiness will generate in the future a series of historical data that will allow any new manager or technician in the company to make better decisions, due to the fact that, in the event of a problem within the company, the possible variables that may be involved in such an occasional phenomenon are already recorded.

Finally, it should be noted that in agricultural enterprises, climatic records, soil records, inventory of crops (birth and mortality), health records (vaccines and deworming), feeding records must be kept regularly, in addition to agronomic work (fertilization, pest control, weeds, sowing among others) and of course production records (crops, meat and milk). I hope that the publication will provide a good insight into the importance of statistically analysed information for the development of companies that generate agricultural products.