Moisture content fines

[Sam10350]

Iam just after some opinions on if this is standard practice or nor not ?!?

Two loads of Winter oats collected this morning. The receiving company is trying to impose reductions as they say they tested the grain and it come back between 17% & 18%. I just tested the rest of the heap left on farm and came back to an average of bang on 16% (which was the sale criteria) and looking back at the samples I sent off prior to sale they came back at 15.5%.

I watched the lorry driver take two handfuls about a ft apart and called that his grain sample.

The grain merchant instantly sides with the buyer regardless of how many 10s of thousands I spend with them. Didn't even offer an independent test until I've pressured them for one.

So my question, is this normal procedure? Seems crazy to just fine a supplier of off a lorry drivers word.

 

[Hay Maker]

Iam just after some opinions on if this is standard practice or nor not ?!?

Two loads of Winter oats collected this morning. The receiving company is trying to impose reductions as they say they tested the grain and it come back between 17% & 18%. I just tested the rest of the heap left on farm and came back to an average of bang on 16% (which was the sale criteria) and looking back at the samples I sent off prior to sale they came back at 15.5%.

I watched the lorry driver take two handfuls about a ft apart and called that his grain sample.

The grain merchant instantly sides with the buyer regardless of how many 10s of thousands I spend with them. Didn't even offer an independent test until I've pressured them for one.

So my question, is this normal procedure? Seems crazy to just fine a supplier of off a lorry drivers word.

The normal procedure is whatever the Merchant / Buyer wants to do. The correct way will be set out in your contract under sampling and or claims, but getting the sampling & testing done correctly is far more difficult as you cannot witness this process. The best approach would be if you had a local weighbridge with sampling equipment to use them to weigh & sample the load & store the sample. This has to be independent, should you have a claim you then a sealed sample which can then be sent you to a lab of your choice for testing & you will get the results back in writing. My betting is you will get far fewer claims as the lorry drivers are usually working for the merchant who will know what is happing so will not dare to make bogas claims. Another bonas would be you get to know the lorry weights so you can invoice the said merchant promptly to get paid promptly. I could go further but i think you get the gist.

 

[teslacoils]

I'll wager the knock off is a quid, maybe two, less than hauling it back.

 

[Sam10350]

Thanks for your reply, I will definitely take your advice going forward. We are mainly a livestock farm just growing cereals to aid our rotation so iam relatively new to these issues!

 

[Nearly]

Concentrate on getting the rest of the pile retested or rehomed?

 

[Sam10350]

Concentrate on getting the rest of the pile retested or rehomed?

Iam keeping the rest for feed so it's no problem to me. I retested what's left in the barn 10 times and didn't have a reading over 16.2.

 

[Nearly]

Iam keeping the rest for feed so it's no problem to me. I retested what's left in the barn 10 times and didn't have a reading over 16.2.

No one on here is suprised.

 

[David.]

Odd that they didn't sample at intake, and went on lorry driver's sample.
FA requires that you retain a representative sample from each load, in case of a dispute.
Ask for independent sample to be done via your merchant.

Reality is that if load has gone in, you are probably not going to win.

 

[suffolksmallholder]

Anything to f**k you over, eh.
The atmosphere is damp so that would detract.
Be the squeaky wheel. In what and however way you wish but squeak LOUDLY
SS

 

[Sam10350]

Odd that they didn't sample at intake, and went on lorry driver's sample.
FA requires that you retain a representative sample from each load, in case of a dispute.
Ask for independent sample to be done via your merchant.

Reality is that if load has gone in, you are probably not going to win.

That's the problem isn't it, same company failed to turn up two weeks in a row after promising they would be here to collect. I didn't expect it from a small company with a neiche criteria ie organic, gluten free, specific variety. Least I can't take pleasure telling them to pee off next year

 

[Sam10350]

That's the problem isn't it, same company failed to turn up two weeks in a row after promising they would be here to collect. I didn't expect it from a small company with a neiche criteria ie organic, gluten free, specific variety. Least I can't take pleasure telling them to pee off next year

*can not can't

 

[Y Fan Wen]

I remember on the radio long long ago on one of the farming progs the story of one who got totally fed up with coming back to the house and the wife telling him that the mill had been on the phone to say a load was below spec and there would be deductions.
He put his thinking cap on and decided that he had sufficient buildings to convert to feeding weaners on to heavy hogs. He prepared fthe buildings and told his wife to say that they were no longer supplying any below spec grain and it was to be sent back. 'You'll have to pay the return transport cost.' 'No matter, we're not supplying any out of spec grain any more.'
He got the first load back and then the out of spec loads mysteriously dried up, so the pig enterprise was also a failure.

 

[shelly reynolds]

Not so many years ago we had the phone call last load of wheat was between 17% and 18% x amount deducted.... we knew it wasn't so told them to bring it back as only 50 minutes away.....Guess what already tipped. They then had no choice but to waive the deductions. Risky game to play by both parties

 

[Wooly]

They are crooks. ...... and some more than others. You only need to tell them to return the load and you intend to get trading standards to retest it and it magically gets into spec !

Deducting a couple of quid per tonne on every load soon mounts up to a hefty profit for the buyers.

 

[Rookie]

You retain samples for each load for Farm assurance but in the event of a claim , the merchant or end user don't want to know!!
Don't know why we bother. Usually a no win situation.

 

[YorkshireAndrew]

We once had a lorry load of beans get to the docks for export only to be told they wanted to dock the price due to higher moisture content , we reluctantly accepted this . Same lorry driver a few weeks later called for some wheat & said our beans had gone on the ship with the rest of the loads . Dick Turpins the lot of them .

 

[glasshouse]

I was loading organic barley for a feed mill a few yrs ago on a friday
I got a few buckets on the lorry when i realised the barley was warm, and about 17%
Phoned mill to say i was not loading any more as it was 17 and warm
They said load it and we will talk about it on monday to discuss a claim.
I said no, i will dry it.
Half hour later they phoned back,
We need it, load it, no claim, its going through the wetter and into the cuber thisafternoon, so it wont matter a jot.

 

[quattro]

Iam just after some opinions on if this is standard practice or nor not ?!?

Two loads of Winter oats collected this morning. The receiving company is trying to impose reductions as they say they tested the grain and it come back between 17% & 18%. I just tested the rest of the heap left on farm and came back to an average of bang on 16% (which was the sale criteria) and looking back at the samples I sent off prior to sale they came back at 15.5%.

I watched the lorry driver take two handfuls about a ft apart and called that his grain sample.

The grain merchant instantly sides with the buyer regardless of how many 10s of thousands I spend with them. Didn't even offer an independent test until I've pressured them for one.

So my question, is this normal procedure? Seems crazy to just fine a supplier of off a lorry drivers word.

You should have kept a sample of what the driver took if that’s the sample the receiver uses

 

[Flintstone]

I’ve found the intakes to be more and more money grabbing in the last few years. It’s a system that’s out of date, and needs changing. We, as the producers, are shafted every which way by the buyers and mills.

As always in farming, there are an increasing number of leaches in the system who take out their little bit of guaranteed profit each year, while we (at the bottom of the food chain) watch our margins get squeezed to quite literally nothing.

And then they have the audacity to tell us we shouldn’t enter SFI because it’s not ‘real farming’!! I wonder why they don’t want us to grow bird food and wild flowers….

 

[Brisel]

We once had a lorry load of beans get to the docks for export only to be told they wanted to dock the price due to higher moisture content , we reluctantly accepted this . Same lorry driver a few weeks later called for some wheat & said our beans had gone on the ship with the rest of the loads . Dick Turpins the lot of them .

The claim is for the transfer of risk. Get a boat load rejected and see what that costs. The merchant's profit is if they have another load tipped at less moisture than the contract maximum and they hope it blends away.