"Full service" or "by the balls"

Wigeon

Member
Arable Farmer
I was chatting to an interested party yesterday, who enlightened a naive yours truly of the extent to which certain large distributors / intermediaries are involved in some arable operations:

A full service package to include supply of seed and all inputs, agronomy, marketing, purchase and movement, with the "farmer" being nothing more than an applicator, who gets given one balancing cheque at the end of the year.

Is this really happening?

If so, at any scale?

Great business model for the distributor...
 

spin cycle

Member
Location
north norfolk
I was chatting to an interested party yesterday, who enlightened a naive yours truly of the extent to which certain large distributors / intermediaries are involved in some arable operations:

A full service package to include supply of seed and all inputs, agronomy, marketing, purchase and movement, with the "farmer" being nothing more than an applicator, who gets given one balancing cheque at the end of the year.

Is this really happening?

If so, at any scale?

Great business model for the distributor...

i don't think it's quite as one sided as you allude....lotta pressure on the merchant or they're out next year...and yes i have heard rumours about such models at large scale
 

Hampton

Member
BASIS
Location
Shropshire
That’s the dream for the firms.
When I did it, I tried to keep away from certain areas and specialise more. I preferred to do less on more farms, than everything on a few
 

Chae1

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
I was chatting to an interested party yesterday, who enlightened a naive yours truly of the extent to which certain large distributors / intermediaries are involved in some arable operations:

A full service package to include supply of seed and all inputs, agronomy, marketing, purchase and movement, with the "farmer" being nothing more than an applicator, who gets given one balancing cheque at the end of the year.

Is this really happening?

If so, at any scale?

Great business model for the distributor...
Simple for farmer too.

They just blame somebody else when it goes wrong.

Get contractors to do rest. Happy days.
 

farenheit

Member
Location
Midlands
Seems fair to me if farmers are fully aware of what they are putting themselves up for. Good for cash flow. Still an incentive to farm well. A lot of farmers who just get contract farmers in are absolving themselves of even more of actual "farming" and again , that's completely fair enough. There's still loads of things farmer able to effect including fixed costs. I'd want to be able to pick and choose what products I used but if it's simply an agreement to supply then why not.
 

Breckland Boy

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Breckland
I was chatting to an interested party yesterday, who enlightened a naive yours truly of the extent to which certain large distributors / intermediaries are involved in some arable operations:

A full service package to include supply of seed and all inputs, agronomy, marketing, purchase and movement, with the "farmer" being nothing more than an applicator, who gets given one balancing cheque at the end of the year.

Is this really happening?

If so, at any scale?

Great business model for the distributor...
If a large agchem distributor/grain firm wants to put in all my seed, fert chemicals, agronomy and handle grain marketing etc and pay me a contractor rate for drilling, spraying, harvesting and hire of the land they will soon realise why I continually moan at them that the seed, fert and chemicals are too expensive and they don't pay enough for my grain.
They would become the producer (risk taker) and I, merely a middle man who gets a margin regardless of the weather or fluctuations of the grain trade.
Sounds ideal.
 

Renaultman

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Darlington
You would be invoiced and then sued, just liked any other unpaid bill?

Don't over complicate things, this is just a contra.
If you can find the person to sue though, and if you do he has to have the funds. This is something that actually happened and I have no doubts that it's not an isolated incident.
 

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
I was chatting to an interested party yesterday, who enlightened a naive yours truly of the extent to which certain large distributors / intermediaries are involved in some arable operations:

A full service package to include supply of seed and all inputs, agronomy, marketing, purchase and movement, with the "farmer" being nothing more than an applicator, who gets given one balancing cheque at the end of the year.

Is this really happening?

If so, at any scale?

Great business model for the distributor...
Its a choice. If people are daft enough to go down that route let them get on with it. Surely in most instances the distributor doesn't want to kill the golden goose......
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
I was chatting to an interested party yesterday, who enlightened a naive yours truly of the extent to which certain large distributors / intermediaries are involved in some arable operations:

A full service package to include supply of seed and all inputs, agronomy, marketing, purchase and movement, with the "farmer" being nothing more than an applicator, who gets given one balancing cheque at the end of the year.

Is this really happening?

If so, at any scale?

Great business model for the distributor...

This is more common in USA, especially for GM crops. Syngenta tried it with Colossus winter barley (seed, PGRS and fungicides in a package) but it never really got going.

Of course the providers of these packages will try and extract the maximum value from the farmer, but if you can make a margin with a more managed risk, why not consider it? Plenty of farmers doing contract finishing, bed & breakfast pigs & dairy replacements so it's hardly a new concept. You need to enter into these with eyes wide open and a well used calculator.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 78 43.1%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.8%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.6%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.2%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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