FARMERS
FIRST
Issue 45 – Winter 2017/2018
LAMMA 2018 Special Inside
MACHINERY HIRE ‘BEST OPTION’ FOR MANY Hiring equipment for a short period has always been popular for one-off or infrequent jobs, but many leading farming businesses prefer this method to obtain the use of machinery rather than purchasing it. Tom Mountain, Machinery Buyer for Fram Farmers, explains why. The number of Fram Farmers’ members looking to hire machinery is increasing rapidly. The question is now not ‘why hire?’ but ‘why not hire’?
Hiring used to be considered the poor man’s alternative to buying, but now the ‘smart money’ is in hiring and this form of machinery management is increasingly being used by the best-managed farming businesses who understand the significant benefits it can provide. At the Fram Farmers’ Brexit workshops in June, key speaker Rachel Lawrence of the Farm Business Survey highlighted the importance of understanding where your farm is positioned relative to others of a similar type.
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The Top 25% arable farms spend 32% less on labour and 28% less on machinery per £100 of turnover! They invest almost twice as much in their businesses as the average, and many hire key machinery rather than purchasing it to save money, and because of the flexibility it brings in terms of managing their operations, adapting to change and reducing risk. MAJOR BENEFITS Surely hiring cannot be more economical than buying? Well, it can. In fact, there are Continued on page 4
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