Searchmore came back to me with a couple of supplementary, and interesting, questions: Dear Duncan Thank you for the reply to my query. However I've discovered further issues with regard to this Crocodile valuation dilemma. We don't have an active market for the live crocodiles ( both consumable and bearer biological assets) and presumably paragraph 30 applies. The question is : 1 - What cost do we attribute to the consumable bearer biological assets and to the consumable biological assets? The main costs incurred is feeding , treatment costs and cleaning costs for the holding pens coupled with the direct labour. 2 -How should we best present the two classes of the biological assets in the balance sheet? Regards Searchmore My replies are: Dear Searchmore Question 1: IAS 41 paragraphs 30 – 33 show that the IASC people never thought about what might happen in Zimbabwe, did they? Their message in these paragraphs is quite clear: your problem is only an acceptable problem the first time you try to solve it, then it's plain sailing! “There is a presumption that fair value can be measured reliably for a biological asset. However, that presumption can be rebutted only on initial recognition for a biological asset for which market-determined prices or values are not available and for which alternative estimates of fair value are determined to be clearly unreliable. In such a case, that biological asset should be measured at its cost less any accumulated depreciation and any accumulated impairment losses. Once the fair value of such a biological asset becomes reliably measurable, an enterprise should measure it at its fair value less estimated point-of-sale costs.” IAS 41:30 As a cost accountant, I have always taken the view that IAS 41 should adopt a cost based valuation basis anyway, but the IASC have decided otherwise. Paragraph 33 helps us here: “In determining cost, accumulated depreciation and accumulated impairment losses, an enterprise considers IAS 2, Inventories, IAS 16, Property, Plant and Equipment, and IAS 36, Impairment of Assets.” IAS 41:33 Take the view that you would for any other product that goes through a process, such as manufacturing furniture from wood or youghurt, cheese and butter from milk and so on and accumulate your costs from there. I would keep it as simple and realistic as possible. Question 2: IAS 41 is fairly clear here and I think that as long as you are able to accumulate the costs of the different classes of asset successfully then just take a look at the specimen balance sheet in Appendix A of IAS 41 for guidance. I hope you find these comments helpful. Best wishes DW