The NAAC has released its annual contractor price averages, which serve as a useful guide when working out the going rate for particular services. Jill Hewitt, the association’s chief executive, reports.

The National Association of Agricultural Contractors (NAAC) has released its latest survey of contracting prices and the overall results reveal inevitable rises for most services.

However, increases are some way below the UK inflation rate, with average cultivation and drilling figures up by just over 4% and 3.5%, respectively.

Dig deeper, though, and readers will find that some individual services have risen significantly while others have flatlined.

Download the 2023 NAAC contracting prices survey PDF.

That’s despite the costs of fuel, labour and inputs remaining challenging, and the NAAC is advising its members to review all their pricing structures to ensure they can remain profitable.

Only then can they provide farmers with a professional standard of service, rewarding loyalty with well-maintained kit and skilled, conscientious labour.

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With that in mind, the NAAC is encouraging members to use its online pricing tool, developed with Andersons Consulting.

This allows contractors to evaluate each operation, considering all costs, so that they can see the cold, hard facts for specific jobs.

The tool takes account of numerous variables such as depreciation and repair costs of individual machines, plus outgoings related to the yard, insurance and office staff.

Each task can then be broken down to factor in fuel, area and speed of work, labour, downtime and profit, allowing quotes to be formulated based on a complete data set.

Inevitably contractors must find the right balance to retain a loyal customer base while keeping up with inflation and running safe, efficient contracting businesses.