- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Is it just me? (I find myself saying that quite a lot in my doddering dotage). I don’t recall asking my machinery suppliers to fit computers, whizz bang flashing lights, swoopy bonnets, and all the other junk to the various lumps of plant and machinery I utilise from day to day. And do bear in mind that what I mostly get up to is harvesting fodder for my bovines, then throwing it at them, later removing the subsequent by-product. Perchance I might be shunting oaken logs toward the sawmill, or towing various trailers. Most of the tractors, handlers and 4x4s we’re using are already overly complex by a significant factor, and getting worse.
The cut-off date seems to have been sometime in the early noughties. Prior to that, a spanner and a lump hammer fixed most things, while subsequently, a laptop is increasingly needed.
Ditto the swoopy plastic bodywork. Sadly, I hadn’t realised before trading in one or two bits of gear which I now wish I’d held onto.
To put it in perspective, after a certain amount of management discussion, we’ve agreed that with the boy home we needed another frontline loader tractor. I haven’t brought anything with wheels and an engine onto the place for about 7 years –other than a couple of secondhand hatchbacks for teenaged offspring learning to drive. So I was granted executive authority to progress the matter, but soon established that a new tractor was (a) twice the price I was expecting, and (b) half as complex again as…well, last week. Obviously the exchange rate is against me, and perhaps it’s a sign of a new world order, or looming Brexit, or just my age, but I wasn’t going to be spending over £50k on something to drop round bales into feeders.
So I’ve spent some weeks trawling auctions and traders yards for a basic (green) 90-100bhp model from about the turn of the millennia. All the bits I want, but none of the hi-tech I don’t. And mostly, what I discovered was that it isn’t just me! I was the under-bidder at a couple of retirement sales, with my next bid in each case going to be more than I was set to pay for a tractor almost 20 years old, and with around 8000 hours on the clock. I seldom blanche when I decide to do something, but there is a limit. Forays to dealers yards revealed several held together with zip ties, silage tape, and wishful thinking. I even sent a pal within striking distance of a Fenland dealer to check one out. That one was on the nose, perfect for our job…except for nasty black dribbles coming down the block. A quick bit of research suggested a variety of causes, ranging from a fairly minor gasket repair, up through to needing a new block. That wasn’t going to happen then, although I got as far as checking out the availability of a now donk to the original spec – IE not emasculated by emission controls- feasible, but it wouldn’t be cheap. Another dealer had a trio of very low hour models in, like new –having sporadically pushed snowploughs around an airfield. They didn’t have loaders fitted –add five grand plus- and were only on 30k gearboxes. Oh, and he was quietly confident in asking £27 500 plus vat for them. That must be about they would’ve cost new. Gulp.
I gave up in the end, and went 10 years younger, for a bit more cash.
There’s one on demo as I tippity tap, and yes, it’s got more buttons and widgets than I can count, a big plastic swoopy bonnet, and a computer lurks somewhere in its guts. I note that, like me, it too is already obsolete.
Elsewhere, I’ve glanced at the cost of changing the telehandler in the mill, and there’s sod all chance of that happening, and the landrover which ferries me abroad when I’m sneaking about can’t be replaced anyway, so that one is staying for a bit. Alison’s Disco is overdue for a change –it’s not just her shopping run-around you understand, but is regularly hauling a 14’ trailer full of bullocks - but that isn’t an appealing change either.
I’m sure it’s all very Freudian. While well into my fifth decade, I’ve usually got the funding to keep newer gear, I can’t see the future in it now. The farming I’m doing isn’t paying, so why give all my subsidies to multi-national machinery corporations? If I can rub along, I might have some spare groats to put into some kind of pension.
It concerns me that we’re falling ever further behind the pack, and out of the perceived mainstream. But here’s the thing…..it doesn’t concern me much.
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Anton's articles are syndicated exclusively by TFF by kind permission of the author and WMN.
Anton also writes regularly for the Dartmoor Magazine and the NFU
For those of you who don't know Anton, he farms on Dartmoor with his wife Alison and Son John.
Anton is the 5th to farm the Duchy of Cornwall Sherberton Farm and his family have farmed within 6-7 miles for over 500 years.
Anton also runs a mobile sawmill, hardwood timber business, granite quarry, sells beef and hides, breeding stock and Dartmoor ponies and has a holiday cottage at Sherberton Farm
He has published two books; the second "The Complete Bullocks" is still in print
http://www.anton-coaker.co.uk/book.htm
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I expect some would want more, but i am fine with that amount.
