The Link

In Spring a young mans fancy turns to thoughts of love

They used to say that In Spring a young mans fancy turned to thoughts of love. It may well still do, I cant remember that far back, but like as not it will also turn to GS 31, the correct timing of Plant Growth Regulators, wheat bulb fly & leather jackets, and nitrogen applications.

Add in lambing, corn, sugar beet and maize drilling, potato planting, and don’t forget weed control with the myriad of products whose glossy adverts appear in every journal, and it is a wonder that anyone, young or old can have time to think of anything else.

The Ring can have little direct input into the first mentioned activity although it has been compared to a dating agency due to its role of introducing people who require a service or work done to those who can provide it.

It may however be able to help with some of the other tasks if lack of time or tackle is contributing to a bottleneck. Try us.

Apart from the social aspect they value the opportunity of meeting and listening to members about what the Ring is doing and also what we could be better at, and possible new areas to become involved in. With no feedback determining the right direction is hard.

We are very conscious that because of F & M we have had a low profile this last year. No organised events, no shows to attend and no farm visits to either recruit new members or call on existing ones. Rays retirement in June has also not helped. All this, together with the continuing depressed state of the industry, has meant that we have suffered a net loss of members this year for the first time ever. The statistics make sad reading, for example 9 members have either retired or given up the struggle whilst they are still young enough to do something else and get out with some capital intact.

Taking all factors into account the Directors quite rightly, in my opinion, took the view that it would not be prudent to replace Ray at that time as the replacement could not be self funding under current conditions. In effect the Ring has recently been a one and a half man band, I have been manning the phone and running the office with Francis coming in as and when required to do the invoicing. This is not a satisfactory solution.

Following the publication of the England Rural Development Plan we have been exploring the options open to us to determine if a grant application under the Rural Enterprise Scheme would be beneficial and help to kick start us over this next hurdle.

Perhaps contrary to perceived popular opinion these grants are not easy to obtain or implement, they have to be supported with a full business plan which the guide lines suggest should cover some 50 odd points including specific targets that will have to be achieved. They have to demonstrate good value for money, the funding has to be matched from other sources and the grants are awarded competitively against other applicants.

All the work has been done "in house" involving a sub committee of directors. It would certainly have been easier and less time consuming to employ a consultant, but we thought that we were the ones who knew our own business best. After several false starts we believe the plan we have submitted and which has just been accepted will help further the aims that the Directors have for the company.

We now have to put some practical flesh on the bones to start implementing the plan during the next financial year.

As things develop we will be keeping you all in the picture.

I will soon be contacting potential labour suppliers regarding their availability and preferences but as many established practices may have changed as a consequence of foot and mouth please keep me in the picture so that I am up to date with everyone’s availability.

Compared to other Rings we have a higher proportion of inactive or low user members and we are more reliant on subscription income as compared to levy income to cover our costs. On average if every member increased the amount of work put through the Ring by only £160 the Ring income would increase by £1,000.

Stock feed and grazing is up mainly due to animals being caught away from home when movement restrictions were imposed. One group of heifers have probably spent more of their life away than they have at home and will form the basis of a new herd after returning to a newly cleansed farm.

Sale values of straw are up, reflecting the unsustainable high values that we have seen this year. In my view those of you who are looking for high prices of straw in the swath this year to counter falling grain prices will be disappointed. I expect (and hope for the end users sake) that values will fall to more sustainable levels.

Traditionally our main export market for straw has been to members of the South West Machinery Ring in Scotland, another area badly hit by F & M and this has been much reduced due to a mutual reluctance to travel to / or accept straw from what was perceived to be another infected area. However as one door closes another opens and alternative markets were developed with other Rings.

Turnover in tyres etc through our partners ATS are showing a steady year on year increase, and I hope that wearing parts will become more prominent as more of you try them for quality. Nobody has been disappointed and I have even had unsolicited phone calls praising them. For someone to bother to pick up the phone and give praise is a recommendation in itself!

Not so!

Bruce Hamilton, Manager of the Tay Forth Machinery Ring has excelled himself and I cannot resist reproducing here an index-linked chart of the spot price for wheat for the whole of the last century. The darker band of each column is the actual price paid and the upper, lighter colour is that price increased by the amount of inflation between then and now.

It is a sobering thought to think that in the early seventies wheat was the equivalent of £400 per tonne. What on earth did they do with such wealth!!

Even more sobering is the thought that in 1931 when Street wrote his sombre piece on the state of agriculture, the indexed price of wheat then was roughly twice what it is today.

Almost as fascinating as the graph is the story behind it and I have reproduced the email Bruce sent with it.

"Let me tell you the background to this graph. I had a speaker at last years AGM, Steve Townsend, the foremost Min Till man in the country. He referred to a book published in 1919, "English Farming Past and Present" by Lord Ernle. In this was the price of wheat from 1771 to 1911. I was fascinated by this and asked Waterstones to find me a copy - and they did!

The rest was quite simple. The HGCA were happy to e mail me the prices from 1910 when they started and the Bank of England, would you believe it, sent me the value of the pound from 1270 to 2001.

All I had to do was to convert bushels to tonnes and get a spreadsheet to give me the graph."

If any of you reading this can come up with something of similar interest for other sectors I would be pleased to give it space. (Click on the graph to load a full size verion).