2019 Potato area
- Thread starter D14
- Start date
Are you talking margin? If so you are at £350/ac- £600/ac which is generally over £1000/ha. Most arable farmers would love to make those margins! If I had the skills,land and equipment (Big IF I realise) I would probably grow the majority of my spuds on a contract.
- Location
- West Suffolk
There’s more to it than just the price received. Atm with freebuy we bag our own and have control over outgrades. Getting paid is also not an issue. The merchants we deal with pay dead on 4 weeks. We did some bulk on contract mid Jan and still haven’t been paid by the large company who bought them. Also the worry of the big contract firms wanting lots of loads in a short period (a lot of monies worth) and them going bust.
In regard to margin yes there’s fluctuation with free buy. Last year we were losing £500. This year,well let’s just say they make up for last years loss!
- Location
- South Shropshire
Margin per acre isn’t really of any interest in spuds.
Margin per £ invested in the crop is much more useful, or margin per labour unit used. It is a completely different animal to combinable cropping, and the risk is much, much more: be it price risk or risk of a store breaking down or a customer going bust owing you £250000.
I realise it isn’t easy. Know a few in the game.
- Location
- East meath/dublin
Am out of the spud game 20 odd years , so maybe shouldnt be commenting but here goes !!
Contracts are great if the can stand up in years of surplus but in my experience have a bad habit of turning to toilet paper or the tare becomes excessive as a means of getting the price down . Then getting paid can be a problem , the merchants carry on like you should be grateful the are taking them at all !!
Free buy at big money is what we used to dream about . It satisfied the gambling gene too . My father loved spuds but he also felt that " poor years followed very good ones as sure as night followed day " and the best way of holding on to your money was to cut your acreage not increase it . He also maintained that spuds were grown by Cowboys and bought by Tramps so was not an enterprise for the faint hearted !!!
As Chipchap pointed out the risks are high and the Spud addiction can cost you dear . It still remains an awful itch but i wont be scratching it !! Cows dont mix well with spuds as i remember only too well .
Contracts are great if the can stand up in years of surplus but in my experience have a bad habit of turning to toilet paper or the tare becomes excessive as a means of getting the price down . Then getting paid can be a problem , the merchants carry on like you should be grateful the are taking them at all !!
Free buy at big money is what we used to dream about . It satisfied the gambling gene too . My father loved spuds but he also felt that " poor years followed very good ones as sure as night followed day " and the best way of holding on to your money was to cut your acreage not increase it . He also maintained that spuds were grown by Cowboys and bought by Tramps so was not an enterprise for the faint hearted !!!
As Chipchap pointed out the risks are high and the Spud addiction can cost you dear . It still remains an awful itch but i wont be scratching it !! Cows dont mix well with spuds as i remember only too well .
The biggest problem spud growers make for themselves is by investing in new equipment in my view. The potato area of a farm generally is a small percentage of the land farmed due to rotations so why invest hundreds of thousands in equipment covering a relatively small area. Take our destoner for example. Its 25 years old and is basically rollers, bearings and chains. Its value to sell is almost scrap but we spend £1500 every winter on it and it destones without any issues. A new destoner is £80,000 I'm told. Our in house cost is £42-51/acre depending on soil type. A local contractor price is £90/acre and he's running new machines covering loads of ground so timing for us wouldn't be ideal. Another thing is I don't see why potato growers feel the need to have everything all in the same field at the same time? Why not autumn plough, january ridge and april bed till. Thats 3 jobs all with the same tractor. Then another on a destoner and one on a planter. 100 acres per year with 3 tractors is easily achievable with 3 operators.
I have a friend who plants 900 acres of potatoes every year and he has 6 old destoners like ours. He rebuilds them every winter like we do and then runs 4 at a time with 2 spare should he need them which he occasionally does if the weather isn't great. He hires in tractors and men and turns them on and off as required. He's been doing it this way for 30 years.
If you want the shine fancy equipment to look good then all you are doing is reducing your profit.
I have a friend who plants 900 acres of potatoes every year and he has 6 old destoners like ours. He rebuilds them every winter like we do and then runs 4 at a time with 2 spare should he need them which he occasionally does if the weather isn't great. He hires in tractors and men and turns them on and off as required. He's been doing it this way for 30 years.
If you want the shine fancy equipment to look good then all you are doing is reducing your profit.
- Location
- South Shropshire
- Location
- West Suffolk
But if you don’t invest in up dating in years like this then when do you do it? All very well repairing stuff and good for tax I know. But there are some benefits of changing too. More output, convenience, different method of doing the job?
- Location
- South Shropshire
The point is us smaller growers only buy the kit that has stood the test of time, a great deal of time usually. In our case a 1998 DL1700 wheel drive and a 2005 CS1500. Our grader is 1988.
In my view you do not need modern up to date expensive potato equipment for anything below 200 acres per year. The reason people moan about margin in the job is because they've got to much money tied up in repayments of equipment that does not do the job any better than something 20 years old. The keys with it though is to strip the 20 year old stuff down and rebuild it over the winter. They are not complicated things to work on and as already said basically just rollers, bearings and chains. The main structure needs some welding every now and again but it is not much and when you look at the prices of new stuff it just does not add up. As mentioned our destoner is worth nothing but does the same job as a brand new £80,000 version.
However if we were growing 1000 acres then I can see the logic is keeping things updated because the biggest issue is finding tractors and drivers so if new destoners work 10% faster than an old one then you'll save on tractors and men by investing in newer stuff.
Colin
Member
- Location
- Perthshire
Got to keep the non cash items down aka depreciation, run a Grimme sp, it's done 9 seasons, bought it used for 250 acres. Run 2 separators for 350 (carrots and spuds,) but they are both 10+ years old. Newer machines don't appear to be any faster
Gerbert
Member
- Location
- Dutch biblebelt