Farmer Focus: Scrap price subsoiler is first machinery buy
Keith Challen © Tim Scrivener Firstly, happy new year to everyone, although there’s nothing much to make you very happy in our industry currently.
In my 30 years of farm management I don’t think I’ve ever felt so uninspired, unhappy and downright angry.
It feels like we are being attacked from every angle by the current shambolic, woeful government.
See also: Soils improve for Northants grower after a switch to regen
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I read Defra secretary Steve Reed’s press release in December, saying he’s planning on developing a 25-year farming roadmap focusing on how to make us more profitable.
If he and the rest of the current government carries on like this, there won’t be any farmers in 25 years.
Hopefully, he’ll put everyone’s mind at rest during his Oxford Farming Conference speech – although I doubt it. Apologies for my political rant.
We finished the calendar year with 890mm of total rainfall, a full 240mm more than our long-term average.
Thankfully, continued ditch maintenance and de-silting has helped reduce the impact.
The unfortunate part is that as soon as the water hits non-farm managed water ways it all grinds to a halt and floods.
Winter machinery maintenance is well under way, and luckily there isn’t too much expense expected.
One of the good things about only farming heavy clay is that wearing metal usually lasts multiple years.
Capital expenditure in the coming year is going to be kept to a minimum, although I have just made the first purchase of 2025: a used Cousins subsoiler at little more than scrap price.
It will be converted into a six-leg low-disturbance subsoiler to suit one of the smaller tractors.
I’d also hoped to invest in a 15t excavator to help with various projects around the farm, including loading the spreader in our composting operation although that may all change once we see the results of Defra’s snap review of autumn muck spreading.
Let’s hope common sense prevails, although yet again I doubt it.
