Outcomes the sun and suddenly the jobs which we could not do, are now good to go all at the same time! This blog is supposed to be about land drainage and agricultural contracting, but I realised that I spend a great deal of time talk about the weather and the seasons. There is no avoiding nature in my line of work it controls what we do and then we do it, it’s the same of most work in Agriculture.
The other seasonal aspect of my life is time spent in the car. In the winter most of the jobs we do are small which translates as local - no one who is not local can complete on price if transport cost are high percentage of a small total. In the summer the contracts tend to be larger and often further away. This week I have been on a job just outside London, next week we are up north to Bradford. I clock up quite a few miles over the course of a year, but the vast majority are travelled between May and October.
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
It’s been a quiet time of late, spent hiding from the rain, here at the mudhound. When the weather is as wet as it has been for the last two weeks we have no choice but to cowl in the depot and wait for the sun to reappear. Twice last week I splashed through the River Leam which busted its banks on both the way to work and going home. Many were turning around, but the trusty Freelander managed to push the water aside, causing an envious stare from a couple of Ford Festia Drivers.
Whilst we certainly need the water, the guys are getting bored of indoor jobs, there is only so much tidying that can be done. Of course we could get out there, it takes a hell of a lot to stop a drainage machine, however the damage which would be caused to the soils structure would be considerable and drainage is supposed to improve structure not destroy it!
On the subject of soils I attended a talk about soil fertility last week, by fellow Nuffield Scholar Tom Bradshaw. It was excellent, his arguments were logical and delivered with a clear enthusiasm. The gist of the talk, as I saw it, was that soils need to be cared for and thought about constantly. Perhaps in the past we have been guilty of taking the soil of granted and relying on chemical imports. However anything that reduces costs is very welcome indeed.
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
Glancing through the blog I have just realised the lack of a Mudhound staple: pictures of drainage machines! Time to put that right ....
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
I look out of the window on this wet, typically showery April day and see rain falling, at the same time I read in the press that the environment agency have officially declared the west midlands, which includes the rolling green hills of Warwickshire, as a drought region. Irony.
I do not wish to be flippant. Drought is serious and it has been impossible not to have noticed the lack of rainfall over the last year. Time and time again our excavations reveal surprisingly dry soil, the mud which gives this blog its name has been in short supply. Our relationship with rain is perhaps more complicated than it first seems, clearly without the copious rain fall ‘enjoyed’ by the UK our services would not be required. However on a day to day basis the rain is a big obstacle. We loose more productive days, and therefore profit, due to the ground conditions not being fit to operate on than any other reason. This dry weather has allowed us to crack on and be productive, we will have to wait and see what effect it has on the order book over the next couple of months.
I know I said that I would stop waffling on about Nuffield and the CSC, but realised that I had not posted these photos below. They were taken from the top of New Zealand House, one of the venues we were fortunate enough to be hosted in. Close to Trafalgar square, New Zealand House must be at least ten stories higher than any surrounding building, hence the views are fantastic. As you can see the London Eye is only a little higher and I reckon New Zealand House is in a better location.
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
Life seems busy at the moment, I seem to write similar words on this blog regularly however it is often what I feel. My Nuffield year has started with a bang, which is fantastic, it also means that I feel like I have two jobs at the moment, okay so that’s an exaggeration, but there is a lot to fit in. I’m certainly behind on blogging about what I have been doing but hopefully I can start to put I few things right and finish off telling you about the CSC (contemporary scholars conference)
I figured some of the things I would be doing this year would be impressive and I hoped to have a couple of good tales to tell, however I was not expecting to do so much, so impressive, so soon. Nothing, I suspect, will be able to match the tour of the Palace of Westminster and our trip to Downing Street. The NFU arranged for us to have a tour of Parliament, we visited the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and saw all the sights. We then walked under the road to portcullis house which is where most of the committee rooms and PMs’ offices are located. I thought the tour stopped there and if it had I would of have been very pleased, however we then walked along Whitehall to Downing Street, passed though security and had a photo opportunity outside number ten! One of the governments communications advisors (I guess that’s a spin doctor) then talked to us for a while about his role and communication in general.
Ten Downing Street is really a large office block and the famous door we see on telly is the main entrance so taking pictures was surprisingly time consuming as the door kept opening and closing every couple of minutes. Never-the-less none of us wanted to miss out on the chance to have our photo outside number ten so we persevered. I think this is the first proper photo of me I have put on the blog!
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
One of the places we visited in the on the Nuffield CSC in The Netherlands was the Flower Auction. I can understand your first thought, why take a brunch of farmers to an auction house, and why flowers. I almost asked it myself, however it quickly became apparent why the Flower market was exactly the sort of place to visit.
I was unaware, until I visited Flora Holland, that most of the flowers we buy in England are grown in The Netherlands and an even larger percentage are sold there. The scale of the industry and the auction house is massive - numerous warehouses all the size of a couple of football pitches back to back holding nothing but flowers. Each day starts at 6.00am when the auctions begin - and yes they are Dutch auctions with the price moving downward rather than upward - and hundreds of thousands if not millions of flowers are sold. Amazingly each lot is passed before the buyers whilst being sold, the logistics in such an operation can hardly be believed.
Attention to detail was clearly important, for example each type of flower has its own ideal temperature so each warehouse is cooled to a different temperature depending on which type of flower is passing through. Everything is electronically coded, labelled and tracked from arrival from the producer to being shipped out by the buyer.
This operation is entirely farmer owned, the whole company is a cooperative designed to give the growers the best possible price. I’m sure that many growers would still feel that prices are too low and certainly there appeared to be a great deal of supply, however, small scale growers, by joining together have the size to take on the large buyers in a fair market. Whilst not perfect does certain gives food for thought. Below are the banks of buyers who turn up each day. (sorry the photo is a little blurred)
One thing which cannot be doubted was that it was a hugely impressive operation.
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
We have just completed an agricultural drainage scheme on what is normally a very wet field in early March, this is a very unusual statement on its own, however I have just measured up the job without having to put on my Wellies. Very odd indeed.
The word drought seems to be everywhere and there is no doubt that we have experienced a very dry time. I suspect that the world will return to normal soon and once it starts to rain I suspect it will forget to stop!
In the mean time it gives us an unexpected gap in which to get on and install some drainage, we are very busy for this time of year. The world always throws up surprises...
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
Just back from my first Nuffield experience. It was quite an adventure, packed full to the brim and with highlights every day. It’s fair to say that it exceeded my expectations. All told it was a week and a half of meeting enthusiastic people and listening to interesting speakers, often in very grand or impressive venues.
I’m not entirely sure how to sum it up but one thing I do know is that I’m absolutely shattered. There were many early mornings and late nights, I guess I’m getting old. I hope to post a few stories over the next couple of weeks explaining some of the things we did which might be of interest.
I’m only a couple of days into this Nuffield year but even so I would recommend anyone thinking of applying to do so!
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
I suspect this will be the last blog entry for this month, as tomorrow I have to travel down to London and report to the Farmer’s Club to start my year of Nuffield travels. To begin with, all twenty scholars, have three days in the big smoke being briefed on what is expected of us and hopefully a liberal dose of advice on how to go about doing it! From there we travel on mass to the Contemporary Scholars Conference in the Netherlands, here we meet up with scholars from all the other Nuffield Nations, namely, Australia, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand and of course the Netherlands. After four days its back to London to continue the conference, all told I will be away for ten days.
At this moment in time I don’t really know what to expect on both the week ahead and the year in general. Having said that I will have to be away for eight weeks and deliver a report upon my findings and chosen topic. It’s quite a big commitment so I see nothing else to do but throw myself into it and get out the maximum possible benefit. Certainly no else in the UK will have seen land drainage in such a variety of places or had the opportunity to study land drainage in such detail, it should be a fantastic experience which will hopefully greatly benefit me and the company.
If I get the chance I will post a blog from the conference, but I suspect it will be more likely that I will disappear for a week and a half hopefully to reappear with a full report.
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
I have no complaints about being a contractor, like all jobs there are some good parts and some bad, but when everything is added up I believe there’s more on the positive than the negative side. As you can probably tell I’m about to talk about one of the bad aspects, but I’m trying not to wallow! One problem which I suspect stalks all contractors and probably most manufacture’s regardless of industry is cash flow.
In the summer months we often have three or four large contracts all going at once. It is obvious that these jobs require materials and labour to put the drains in the ground, materials which have to be paid for normally within 30 days and labour which goes out of the company’s bank account at the end of the week. There is no negotiation, if we did not pay our staff, quite rightly they would soon disappear and if we don’t pay the bills the deliveries required for the next job don’t arrive.
The problem is that most of the time we can only invoice when the job is done (although on larger jobs interim payments are possible) and we give the standard 30 days payment terms. Of course we could alter the payment terms but no doubt other drainage contractors would offer better terms and it seems that 30 days in a recognised standard. The gap between paying out and getting in can be increased by being busy. There are only so many drainage schemes which can be measured up in a day and so many invoices which can be prepared. A back log can develop just then we need to get the invoices out quickly.
A quirk is that cash flow is often a very poor way to judge how the company is getting on. In the summer, when we are flat out, buying loads of materials, paying the guys overtime, and struggling to keep up with the invoicing, the bank account can look horrible, yet the company is profitable. In the winter the reverse is often true, as the summer rush is over and payments start arriving, the bank account swells but the company is not as profitable.
On the whole I suspect that farmers are reasonably good payers, some of our clients pay by return (our favourite ones!) some seem unconcerned and only cough up when it suits them! I suspect that it is not possible to form correct opinions generalising such a varied industry. I don’t think there is a great deal we can do about it, other than try to explain the situation to the bank.
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
Exciting news!
I have been lucky enough to be awarded a Nuffield Farming Scholarship!
For those of you do not know, the Nuffield Trust hands out twenty or so scholarships each year. Each of the awards provides funds for those chosen to study a topic of interest in the Agricultural industry, I doubt if you will be surprised to hear that my subject is Land Drainage.
It really is a fantastic opportunity; I now have the chance to travel the world, meet other drainage contractors, see the latest research and explore new technologies. The plan is to be out of the country visiting Europe and America for approximately eight weeks over the next year or so. After eighteen months I have to write a report and present my findings to the Nuffield Conference. I’m hoping that the Nuffield experience will open doors and further my knowledge.
The competition for the scholarship is understandably fierce, with a ridiculous number of applicants. I filled in the form with low expectations and even when I was called for an interview I was very sceptical of my chances. Perhaps this scepticism held me is good stead, as to be honest, I was not that nervous during the interview, despite it being a nerve inducing experience. I had to travel to London and be interviewed by a panel of at least nine people in a grand address near the British Museum. The questions came thick and fast on drainage and farming, but also on more general subjects.
I guess the real work starts now as I have to plan and organise my trips aboard, I’m sure some of the things I will see will be eye opening and I will, of course report back with blog post from far more exotic places than the rolling hills of South Warwickshire.
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
Stand aside jubilee!
Almost by accident I remembered that 2012 is the seventieth year that Farm Services has been in existence. It’s a long time, and I can’t think of another drainage contractor who has been around for so long a length of time. I’m the third generation of my family to work for the company: My grandfather joined the company in 1952, my father in 1982 and I joined in 2002. It is a lot of history and I suppose I should mark the company’s birthday which is in May.
Perhaps a birthday party or maybe a cake?
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
The following is a press release from RASE its regarding a soils and water survey there would like farmers to complete. You may remember that I posted a blog about attending a meeting about trying to get a conference and some practice on-farm demonstrations up and running, well this is the first step. The idea is to tailor the program to suit the needs and thoughts of these who it indents to benefit. As mentioned previously I think it’s a fine idea, especially practical open days which in people can come and see drainage being installed. If you have a few spare moments the soil and water survey is now live.....
“RASE launches nationwide survey to probe levels of soil and water management
A nationwide survey of farmers in arable and grassland regions is to be carried out by the Royal Agricultural Society of England as it launches a major initiative to help improve the management of soil and water resources across UK agriculture.
Climate change, rising costs and consumer demand for minimising the environmental impact of food production all make the management of soil and water resources a vital area for farming in the years ahead, says RASE.
The Society has highlighted these issues through a succession of reports from its Practice with Science Group. Now it wishes to help every farmer improve the management of their soil and water resources so boosting farm outputs and ultimately profitability.
“Since RASE published its report on the state of UK soil science in 2008, soil management has risen up the agenda – both in terms of R&D and in farmer awareness of its overall importance. Unless soils are well managed, all other farming activity is under pressure - winters are longer on livestock farms; establishment and autumn cultivation more difficult for arable farmers,” said RASE Chief Executive, Denis Chamberlain.
“RASE is launching two-years of activity in this area with a major, interactive conference planned for autumn of this year, followed by some regional, practical on-farm days in 2013. The research, which will be carried out by telephone and on line, will probe farmers activity in drainage and winter water storage.”
The key areas this research will cover include:
· What the major concerns are for different types of farmers in different parts of the country relating to soil and water management
· Exactly what measures farmers are currently taking to manage their soil and water resources
· How farmers plan to manage the challenges posed by extreme weather patterns
· What drainage investment has been made in the past 15 years
· What plans are in place for drainage, water for irrigation and water storage in future.
“Water has to be treated as a scarce resource. Farming uses a significant share of the UK’s available water so the industry has to make its case that it is managing the resources effectively and doing all within its power to make its use of water sustainable,” said Mr Chamberlain.
Back to work is always surprisingly hectic. In part because of the jobs which were left unfinished before Christmas, in part because of the enquires which come in when are off and also because this is the one time of the year when we can program work with certainly as the date of our return is set.
It can be very difficult to give an exact date to when we will turn up and start a job. Whilst predicting how long a job will take is possible there are so many factors which can cause the program to be altered, the most annoying is break downs. We try to keep our kit in good working order and everything has a maintenance program, but as long as machines are working they will break down at some point, worst still, often if one machine breaks down it will prevent others from working, for example if there is a problem with the drainage machine, nine times out of ten, the contract grinds to a halt. Often clients will add or subtract from a job, other times contracts can be far harder than predicted, for example the ground might be surprisingly rocky.
Normally estimates and promises that your job is next on the list suffice, but when dealing with officialdom, streetworks licenses and the like we sometimes have to give a fixed date.
I have been using my new 2012 diary for a while now and it made me smile so I thought I would share some of the wisdom. I’m sure everyone has seen the standard desk diary which has a supposedly inspiring quote, or a historical date, well each day in my new diary is full of puns, and they are all terrible:
Too many cuppas a day can make you tea-total
For Irish weight watchers, slimerick is the place to go
Pilfer from the library and they will throw the book at you
Incompetent medieval horsemen could be a real kinghtmare
Narrow boat owners are considerate but some tend to barge in
People living in remote hill areas often communicate via moors code
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
We always take two weeks off over Christmas so this will be the last post of a while. The tradition is to pack up early and go down the pub at lunch time. It’s always fun and normally someone has one too many, so stay tuned to hear the gossip in the new year, on second thoughts maybe such tales should stay ‘in house’....
Another working year in over for me, so the only thing left to do is to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Thank you for reading the Mudhound, I will be back in 2012, but now I’m off to the pub!
The last post reminded me of these photographs I took a year or so ago, then the blog was not even thought of. Here are trenchers are laying a drain in the middle of what was to become the A5. As you can see the tarmac is just about to be laid.
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
This is not what we normally do....
As I have said before, we’re drainage contractor but we’re not fussy, if a job comes along which we think we can do, we do it. We spend our time trenching, so perhaps it is not surprising that a client asked us if we could lay a water pipe, the only problem: it had to be laid in the middle of a tiny country lane. After thinking about it we thought we would have a go.
We partnered up with Gammonds, a company which operates rock trenchers, brought in a suitable machine, our client organised the road closures with the council, and we started to trench.
The rock trencher is very similar to the plant we operate, it has a continuous chain and produces an open trench, however it is larger and more powerful. The chain its self is wider and of a different design, the idea is that the rock, or highway in this case, is crushed rather than cut. The pictures below show the machine and the chain and explain it far better than my words.
The picture below shows the trencher, as I took this photo once the machine had stopped working the glass in cab is protected by shutters
Here is the chain
The trench is fitted with a conveyer and the excavated material is lifted and can then be taken away by tractor and trailer. The material is then crushed and used as backfill, rather than removing it from site and bringing in something else.
One problem we had to deal with was the lack of space, nothing can get past the trencher which means the tractors have to back up and down the lane one at time which requires a little co-ordination. Another problem was getting the recycled material back into the trench. When dry, the material ran through the conveyers on our gravel carts, but once wet, it stuck together causing blockages. On wet days we were forced to use modified trailers with plenty of banksmen to guide the operation.
Overall the job was on budget and more importantly, bearing in mind the strict deadlines on the road closures, on time.
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
Open trench drainage being installed on a dank, misty december day.
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
The last blog talked, in part, about winter jobs, well here is one example. Last week our Health and Safety consultant visited for the annual audit. We employ an independent and external H&S expert to check over our systems, working procedures and safety checks and make sure everything is to standard. As some readers will remember, I completed the NEBOSH general certificate in health and safety partly on the recommendation of our last inspection - as my track record with exams is poor I’m going to take the opportunity to boast that I passed with a credit!
Every year our consultant comes up with a ‘to do list’ and we then set about sorting out the issues raised. These are often paperwork jobs, such as writing or improving a risk assessment, formulating a policy upon an issue such as smoking or mobile phone use. Sometimes they are more practical, last year we built and fixed a waist height (removable) chain fence around the loading ramp to stop any idiot falling off. Pleasingly we had ticked off most of last year’s list - leaving only a couple of very minor items, which to be frank we forgot to sort out. Overall I guess we will receive an eight out of ten for the inspection, pretty good, but not perfect.
We have done this for a good few years now, and my question is: will it ever stop? Will we get to the point where the consultant can find nothing more to correct? The cynic in me suspects not, as if we did why would we need to employ a consult again, however it is also true that the standards we are asked to meet improve every year. It is impossible to eliminate risk from our work, but at least we can adopt the right attitude and try as hard as we can to be as safe as possible.
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
I know I drone on about the weather and the seasons an awful a lot, it seems that when I sit in front of the computer and see the blank page ahead of me, whatever subject I was thinking about writing about morphs into words about the weather. Clearly being a drainage contractor is effected by the weather, if it’s raining I get wet, if it’s boiling hot, I sweat, but it goes further than that. In wet conditions our heavy plant and equipment can’t work without leaving deep ruts, something best to be avoided. On wet summer days jobs are delayed and our guys remain in the yard, tidying, repairing and preparing. In the winter we try to schedule contracts that are less weather dependant and we take on larger in-house jobs such as painting our kit. The job changes with the weather and the seasons.
At the moment these misty, dank November days are the start of the seasonal change. So far we have managed to continue working without the weather affecting us too much and at the moment we have a large job which is not that affected by ground condition which should keep us busy until Christmas. Even so I had the time to file away the large stack of papers, pushed to the back corner of my office, which had been growing since spring. I have a winter jobs list, consisting of various tasks which need to be done but are not pressing, it’s time to pick it up and start to think about how to do these jobs. Before long Christmas will be upon us......
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
Just a quick post to mention that the Farming Futures Blog has published an article I wrote for them, I'll never guess but its about drainage. The link is below
http://www.farmingfutures.org.uk/blog/land-drainage-are-there-hidden-benefits
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
I started this blog, in part, because it seemed to me that land drainage was missing out on its fair share of publicity and conversation in the farming world. Drainage seemed absent from the farming press and from discussion groups, despite the fact that most farms have schemes installed and most farms would benefit from installing new schemes. At times during this year I have felt like a lone voice and one which was making only minor progress, however there are others....
I attended a meeting at Stoneleigh Park last week in the offices of the RASE (Royal Agricultural Society of England). They are keen to host and promote a conference on soil and water management, part of which will focus on land drainage. Obviously, I think that this is a great idea and tying in drainage to the bigger picture makes sense as well. Its early days but the hope is to have a conference next autumn followed by some practical demonstrations in the following spring. I’m fully behind this initiative and I hope to keep you updated on progress though out the year.
PS, sorry for the lack of posts of late, I’m moving house, so I have had some time off work....
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
Glancing at the recent blog entries, I realised that I have not posted many pictures of late, so I thought I would share these snaps of some drainage machines. As I look out of the window the rain pours down and the forecast suggests that there is plenty more on its way for the next couple of days. These photos with our plant baking in the sun over the summer seem to have taken a long time ago!
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
I have appointment to visit a site near Bromsgrove at half past two, so I take a quick look at the map to remind me of the route and print out a plan of where I think the site is; sometimes it is not always obvious. I also load up the electric plans to see if there are any cables in the location, best to be forewarned. The car is loaded up with the laser levels and the GPS device. I’m almost out of fuel so I drive up the yard to fill up.
It should take around thirty to thirty five minutes to get there which means I need to leave at one forty five, forty five minutes before I’m supposed to be there. As a contractor, who is trying to sell something, avoiding being late is important. I’m sure everyone will agree that hanging around, wasting time, waiting for someone to turn up is very annoying. It is not a good idea to irritate potential customers. I arrive early which means I have time to kill, but it gives me a chance to check the site access, making sure there are no low bridges and weight restrictions and to wander around the site itself, which is good preparation.
The job is small but straight forward, the client is one we have worked for successfully before and very little, if any, selling or explanation is needed. The field has an obvious fall across it and a brook at the bottom providing a perfect outlet, I take a couple of levels near the outlet just to make sure but the meeting is over quickly. The only unusual request is to get the estimate back to the client before the end of the week, meaning I have only two days, not a hassle but I will have to call the aggregate suppliers today.
I go back via Kenilworth as we have a small gang working on a water supply job, they have just about finished when I turn up and other than a reminder about tidying up and leave the site as clean as possible there is nothing to do. It’s an easy afternoon.
Back at the office and start to call aggregate companies to get the cheapest stone price for the job at Bromsgrove. I call five companies and the conversation is almost exactly the same with each of them. Two give me a price straight away, two say they will call back and I leave an answer machine message with the other. I call another of our gangs and check whether or not they need gravel for tomorrow, and then make the arrangements. In the office we have a quick conversation about tomorrow’s team sheet, which is almost the same as today. After that is sorted the office quietens down and I start to look at producing a proposal plan for the Bromsgrove job.
It’s normally around six or half past that I call it a day and start packing up and switching off the computers, photocopiers, etc. I only live around a fifteen minute drive from the office, so my commute is thankfully short. I know a number of people who travel to Birmingham or London to work, I don’t know they put up with such a long and dull commute.
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
Driving around at this time of year, you can’t help but feel nature changing, the leaves are turning and the first, admittedly gentle, frosts have hit. This is also the time when brown fields give sway to green blankets of new growth. Except in some place the brown still remains, and I can’t help but wonder if the reason of this variable growth are drainage issues. I know in many parts of the country it has been very dry and other reasons may be involved as well, but I’m willing to bet that drainage would help many fields. It also makes me wonder if now is the perfect time to access ground conditions as the bare patches are so obvious.
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
More Posts
Next page »