Arable benchmarking, run for farmers, by farmers.
bench.farm carries on where AHDB Farmbench left off. Enter your costs and output crop by crop, and see how each one compares with AHDB's national figures, with other farms like yours — anonymously — and with your own discussion group.
Your figures stay yours
Nothing is sold or passed to anyone outside the service. Other farms only ever see anonymised figures pooled across several farms.
Bring your Farmbench history
Upload your Farmbench exports and your past years come straight across, with trends over time from day one.
Independent
Run by farmer Charles Quick, trading as CSEQ Technologies Ltd: self-funded, with no advertising, sponsorship or data sales.
Questions
What is bench.farm?
A place to benchmark your crops now that AHDB Farmbench has closed. You enter each crop's area, output and costs, and your whole-farm costs such as labour, machinery and rent, which are shared across the crops. The reports then show your margins and cost of production beside national figures, anonymous cohorts of other members, and — if you're in one — your local discussion group.
Who runs it, and why?
bench.farm is run by Charles Quick, trading as CSEQ Technologies Ltd of Keirles Farm, TA2 8RH. It is self-funded and run entirely for the benefit of farmers: there's no advertising, no sponsor, and your data is never sold or shared outside the service.
How do I join?
You need an invite code, from your discussion group's leader or from us. If you don't have one, choose Create an account and ask for one there — we'll email it to you.
I used Farmbench. Can I bring my data across?
Yes. In Farmbench, open each year's Multi enterprise report, with no comparison and every enterprise ticked, and choose Export to Excel. When you sign up, tell us you used Farmbench and upload all the files at once. They're checked as they come in, and anything that can't be read is listed so you can try again.
Who can see my figures?
- You see everything you enter.
- Other farms never see your figures. With peer sharing on, your submitted figures go into cohort averages that are only shown when at least five other farms are in them, and never when one farm makes up more than half the area.
- Your group's leaders see the submitted figures of farms in their group, by name. Joining a group is agreeing to that; you can leave at any time.
- The operator CSEQ Technologies Ltd runs the service and has database access, so can technically see everything held on it, Your data is only be accessed where it's needed to run, fix or support the service.
When do my figures start to count?
Only once you submit them. Until then — and after any later change, until you submit again — nobody else sees them. Years you import from Farmbench were already checked, so they go straight in. You can stop sharing any year from its page.
Where do the national figures come from?
From AHDB's published Farmbench benchmarks: the top 25%, middle 50% and bottom 25% of farms for each crop. No data flows back to AHDB from bench.farm.
Can I leave, or delete my data?
Yes. You can leave a group from your farm list, stop sharing any year, or delete your account from your account page — which removes your farms and everything in them. The privacy policy has the details.
Who do I ask about something else?
Email admin@bench.farm.