Use and Cost of Contractors

[NewHolland2]

As art of my agriculture course at SAC Aberdeen we're currently doing a fair bit on the financial side and I'm currently looking at the use of agricultural contractors and the costs for various jobs. I was just wondering how many of you use contractors, for what jobs and if you wouldn't mind sharing what sort of rates you pay (if you don't want to share this no need, only if you feel comfortable  )

Also any input from contractors on the board much appreciated 

Cheers Guys

[JohnDeereMan]

we have our own contracting buisines consisting mainly of round bailing, wrapping, raking and mowing as well as combining.

[Deere-est]

Hello Mart, while I cannot give you an insight into pricing maybe what I do/who I work for may help. The contracting group I work within all share the input costs by each doing different tasks and owning different machines. The customer base is largely council farms or those with little labour of 100 to 400ac with one exception of 800ac or so.

Of the group, two are a father - son partnership, one a farmer and one a land owner. There are no other full time staff, myself and two retired gents come in as and when across the three employers.  

[Lord Ferguson]

I can tell you Mart that I work with my tractor for £24 per hour (when the customer is fueling)... that's a man and machine... I got that last year when corn carting...

I also hire myself out to my local builder mates for £30 per hour for 'muck away' plus tipping costs (at cost) if they are using my account at the local recycling centre...

Hope that helps mate...

OH... and now grass topping at £30 per acre too

[Gav836]

We use several contractors on the farm I work on, its easier and more cost effective with the more specialised jobs than it would be to own our own kit. Listed below are what we use them for, no idea on charges though

Hedge cutting

Suspension fertiliser application

Round bale silage making

Maize drilling/harvesting/clamping

Lime spreading

Sugarbeet harvesting

Sugarbeet haulage

Ditching

Soil analysis (nutrients/acidity/disease)

[archbarch]

i used to work for a spraying contractor mainly suspension fertiliser, very specialist compared to conventional crop spraying.

The company that made the fert took a percentage of the application charge but my boss was always paid and never had to chase farmers/growers for money.

I can only recall 2 farmers saying our charges were too low, most would complain they were too dear and we would often have to explain the charges. Im not going to disclose charges but 2 costs that amazed farmers were;

£10,000 maintenance costs for each machine we ran 2

£6,000 insurance for each machine.

Then fuel, my wage, bosses income, depriciation, interest etc.

Conventional crop spraying isnt worth doing for less than £4/ha but there is always someone willing to do the job cheaper.

Agricultural contracting is so hard, farmers havent a clue whats involved work or money wise, you just turn up to do work for them, they dont realise you could be working or have customers waiting 50 miles away. Doing that job i saw farmers in a whole new light, i dont regret it but so many farmers make an effort to be awkward.

As a rule i found the big flash farms with all the kit the least organised and arrogant, with the exception of a few. I even refused to work on some farms.

The only way to make money out of agricultural contracting is to specialise in one area something farmers cant or wont do themselves. Its so easy to do alot of work quickly for a bad payer.

[robl12]

Not sure if this helps mart but this is a link to the NAAC pricing guide for 2008/2009

May also be worth speaking to a few contractors as well.

Can give you the names of a couple in the North east/ Aberdeen area who would give you prices.

http://www.naac.co.uk/Docs/FINAL_CONTRACTOR_PRICES_2008-9.pdf

[jordantaylor]

the farm i work at use dales contractors and we pay them daily. they do everything

combining,cultivating,drilling,baling,silage,spraying- the works

im not sure how much they are paid though, just know its daily

[Jdeere6910]

We charged £25 an hour (farmer fuelled) for contract combining over the last few years as we had a Claas dominator 96 that coped with wet conditions well. We also hire out a Bobcat and driver at £20/hr and contract baling but I dont know how much that is per bale.

[tractorbob]

we get someone in to silage (we mow and put one tractor on a trailer)maize drilling plus harvesting ,round baling (£6 a bale wrapped ) we mow and row(claas 470 rake) liquid fertilizer and spraying the barley plus drilling the barley.. do everything our selfs

[Deere-est]

Hello Mart, while I cannot give you an insight into pricing maybe what I do/who I work for may help. The contracting group I work within all share the input costs by each doing different tasks and owning different machines. The customer base is largely council farms or those with little labour of 100 to 400ac with one exception of 800ac or so.

Of the group, two are a father - son partnership, one a farmer and one a land owner. There are no other full time staff, myself and two retired gents come in as and when across the three employers. 

Further to this, ran out of time earlier.

The father - son business do hedge trimming, subsoiling, ploughing, powerharrowwing/Toptilth, air seeding, direct drilling, maize planting, fert spreading, dung cart, combining, round and big square baling, round bale wrapping silage carting and raking. Most of this is for their own customers, plus fencing and firewood and home spuds. Three tractors, 140hp, 150hp and 170hp. Two combines, both 17ft one rotary and one conventional.

Farmer does the mowing, conventional baling, trailering and spraying. Two tractors, 120hp and 170hp. Plus his own work.

Land owner does dung spreading/carting, silage cart, foraging and buckraking. Hired in spreader as and when. Two tractors of 155hp and 170hp. Forager with 3m grass and 6 row maize headers. Plus firewood.

No massive kit, no chasing the sunset, just a good honest lot who don't create any hassle and just quietly get on with the job whatever it is.  :)

[texas]

For grass silage between €6 and €7 with tax a minut ( firts grass cut about 16 acres a hour, second and + about 22 acres a hour).

You get harvester with 2 trailers and loader.

Texas

[jdc]

I do a bit contracting and also employ contractors.

I drill,roll, spray, spread & combine mainly for neighbours or local farms. In some cases I supply seed, pesticides, fert & diesel too so rates vary.

I get a contractor to do jobs where it's not economic for me to buy a machine or I wouldn't have the time (e.g. cutting hedges after harvest) OSR swathing (not done anymore) was another example.

Up here (approx per acre) combining £25, Combination drilling £18, rolling £5, spreading/spraying £4.0, hedgecutting £13.5/hour, net wrap 4 x 4 bales £2.0 each. All will vary due to rates applied, acreage involved, gps variable rate, etc.

Agricultural contracting is so hard, farmers havent a clue whats involved work or money wise,

There's a hell of a lot of farmers who don't know their own costs and will happily plough for a neighbour for £12.5 an acre: the tractor and man costs more than that!

[Tractorman810]

i am guessing that now a lot of contractors are using gps for spraying and seeding etc, they are now showing true costs to the farmer in terms of acreage completed on the job ?? in years gone by they must have lost something in each field going by what the farmer said it was acre wise and its true size, 

[NewHolland2]

Thanks very much for all the responses guys this is making interesting reading........

Rob - cheers for that link, that's going to come in handy 

[robbo]

i am guessing that now a lot of contractors are using gps for spraying and seeding etc, they are now showing true costs to the farmer in terms of acreage completed on the job ?? in years gone by they must have lost something in each field going by what the farmer said it was acre wise and its true size,

You might be right there Sean, I can remember working for a contractor and always running out of spray or fertilizer before I got to the end of the field

[Deere-est]

It's difficult for a farmer to diddle acres on cropping due to  seed rate, fertiliser rate and spray rate. The latter often worked out by an agronomist. So one way or another, the contractor does find out what the correct area is. Grass however is different and thousands of pounds can be lost to dishonest people. Yield mapping pays for itself, it often doesn't command a rate increase however.

[Murray]

i know the prices he works for but dont think it would be good for me to post here but they currently do:

ploughing

sowing

fert spreading

spraying

mowing

silage work (spfh)

baleing

wrapping

slurry spreading

muck spreading

combine work

[archbarch]

i am guessing that now a lot of contractors are using gps for spraying and seeding etc, they are now showing true costs to the farmer in terms of acreage completed on the job ?? in years gone by they must have lost something in each field going by what the farmer said it was acre wise and its true size,

In some cases Sean not always though, we ran a RDS measuring system and GPS together, we would give the two figures area of field boundary and area sprayed which was always higher due to overlap, we didnt have the auto section cut off system, most farmers would except the higher figure which  was charged but there were a few that would argue???

I often found most fields when measured with GPS came out smaller than what farmers said, probably because fields were always measured from centre of the hedge or drain.