Frontier haulage

[kiwi pom]

Well easy answer is they gotta work the hours adapt to the requirements

UK driving hours rules mean drivers cant work 7 days a week but yes having more than one driver per truck is a better way to work it properly.
Now who's unloading seed at 2am Sunday or loading grain at midnight in January? Fairly sure receivers wont receive outside of office hours either.
From a purely transport point of view the seed delivery trucks would get more done if the one driver did 6pm-6am but who's staying open to allow loading/unloading?

 

[Baling Hay]

Well easy answer is they gotta work the hours adapt to the requirements

Bit ironic when lots of farmers "close" for Xmas for 2 weeks or go shooting odd days and refuse to load grain themselves..........

 

[Sonoftheheir]

Haven’t read all the thread but Cofco have been bad, but ADM have been spot on.

 

[thorpe]

Bit ironic when lots of farmers "close" for Xmas for 2 weeks or go shooting odd days and refuse to load grain themselves..........

dont hunt dont fish dont shoot dont ski so long as im not seeing to the missus ill unload or load anytime, just give me an hours notice!

 

[Green oak]

Haven’t read all the thread but Cofco have been bad, but ADM have been spot on.

I disagree Cofco have been brilliant to me. I know the names changed over the years. But over the last 10 to 15 years I’ve loaded at 5am till 6pm. This year I’ve had there transport manager phone up for a load at 5pm for a load for 6.30pm. He was thankful. I’ve dealt with him over all those years. And the first conversation I had with him is feed me lorry’s. I hate 1 a day. we just cleaned up a 9 load contract in two days with 3 lorry’s.

 

[kiwi pom]

When you think of the amount some farms spend on tractors and machinery, a second hand tractor unit, bulker and flat trailer wouldn't be that expensive. Haul all your own grain and straw, fetch your inputs to avoid delivery costs/problems, maybe even market your own grain to cut out the middleman, knowing you could deliver yourself.
Getting all the paperwork in order along with a HGV test and proper vehicle maintenance would be the biggest hassles.
It would make you more self sufficient though.
Why don't more do it?

 

[Drillman]

Bit ironic when lots of farmers "close" for Xmas for 2 weeks or go shooting odd days and refuse to load grain themselves..........

Farmers aren’t on holiday when there wanting to plant corn

no point merchants taking seed orders if they can’t deliver.

as for loading grain I’ve never said no regardless of time or day of the week unless I’m physically not there and not been given notice they were coming

 

[Sonoftheheir]

I disagree Cofco have been brilliant to me. I know the names changed over the years. But over the last 10 to 15 years I’ve loaded at 5am till 6pm. This year I’ve had there transport manager phone up for a load at 5pm for a load for 6.30pm. He was thankful. I’ve dealt with him over all those years. And the first conversation I had with him is feed me lorry’s. I hate 1 a day. we just cleaned up a 9 load contract in two days with 3 lorry’s.

Their lorries have been at yours!

They have been ok for years, but there seems to be a bit of lack of communication this year.

 

[farmer99]

Fred Smarts at Papworth have been excellent -had the usual drivers who will happily unload seed if no one around also their grain movments have been spot on with plenty of notice when they were coming and no deductions!

 

[ajd132]

Great service from walnes as usual. One of their hauliers is an owner driver who lives in our village so he brings all our new seed out to us. Also great service from Premier seeds getting our home saved dressed up, barley we did straight after harvest in July and the wheat we did 10 days ago. We like supporting these smaller companies. We do have seed from frontier aswell sometimes and most of our fert and both guys we deal with are really good.

 

[T Hectares]

The slow seed supply is an industry wide problem, a late harvest, some seed crop failures and HGV issues have all worked against supply
I’m really thankful to CYO at Didcot who cleaned all of my seed weeks ago, although I’m not planning to drill for 10 days !! For a tiny bit of hassle, home saving delivers a lot for me

 

[AlfM]

Great service from walnes as usual. One of their hauliers is an owner driver who lives in our village so he brings all our new seed out to us. Also great service from Premier seeds getting our home saved dressed up, barley we did straight after harvest in July and the wheat we did 10 days ago. We like supporting these smaller companies. We do have seed from frontier aswell sometimes and most of our fert and both guys we deal with are really good.

Walnes are always spot on for us as well.

 

[Sonoftheheir]

Cofco delivering seed this afternoon!