The Farmers Club Newsletter

The “Club Notes” for Thursday, the 2nd of November 2023

By Dwain Duxson

If you can, please get your family, friends and colleagues to sign up. See the website link here.

New Machinery cancellations

I was talking to a Machinery Dealer today, and he was telling me that there have been alot of new Machinery cancellations. We reported this the other day. These guys are very good at servicing their clients, and they are constantly keeping in touch with customers who have stuff on order. We love this sort of service, and I'm sure the customers do too. But he was telling me that in the last round of calls they did, they had around $10 million worth on order and by the time they did the ring around, it was $7 million, with $3 million worth being cancelled. It's not ideal, but it's where things are at right now. But knowing this sort of information as early as possible in a business is essential. Then, you can act, adjust the budget and work on tactics to start clearing the cancelled stock. Are you hearing the same thing? Reply to [email protected]

Tractoring for Women becomes a serious business

Bell Baker is a Farmer in the Adelaide Hills. Belle and her partner Pods are from a bigger Farm in the SA Mallee but decided to make a change to the Adelaide Hills. They soon realised when they got there that there was a business offering Farm Service to all the small Landholder who had little or no Farming skills. Business is going well the last time I spoke to Belle back in February. But since, I see she has started a course called Tractoring for Women, see the link here. According to this ABC article, the course has been a huge success, and now Belle is taking it to the national stage. Isn't that a great idea? It's great to see something that started out niche and local and becomes so popular that it goes national. She will do it with the support of a $10,000 grant and help from the Tractor Manufacturers and Dealers. The small Farm market is huge, and we need to encourage this because many of these guys are keen to learn how to Farm as a sideline to what they do during the week. Well done Belle. Have you seen the growth of the small Farm market in your area? See an image of Belle below. Reply to [email protected]

Where does it stop? - 300 Tonne Mother Bin

A Club member sent me a photo of a 300 Tonne Mother Bin. See below. It's the first image. It is manufactured by GrainKing out of WA, and the one in the picture is the first one to be sold outside of WA. They also make 220, 176 and 140-Tonne Bins. Remember when we had the 110-tonne ones, and we thought that was it? Now, surely 300 tonnes is the max. I mean, back in the 70's, we would have fitted our whole Harvest in that Bin. However, we would have had to quadruple the length of the outlet Auger on the Massey 585 PTO Header for it to reach over the top. Interestingly, they only have two axles. We go to the Field Days and marvel at the scale of things, but it never seems to reach a point. Do you think when things are more Autonomous, we will see things start to reduce in size, or do you think things will just keep getting bigger? Reply to [email protected]

Ahead in Ag Automation

When I was talking to the dealer above, I was also talking to a Farm Machinery and Equipment importer who is based here. He was telling me he just got back from a couple of weeks in China and said that they are so far ahead of the rest of the world with Ag Automation that it's not funny. He told me about this jacket all the Fruit Pickers wear that has robot instincts and leads the arms to the fruit and makes it much easier on the body. It can also pick up a 50kg bag of fruit, which feels like picking up a 5kg bag. He said you still need the human to put the jacket on, but the wear and tear on the body is far less, and they end up picking so much more. He said the Drone tech over there is way ahead of anything he has seen. That picking technology needs to come here. Reply to [email protected]

Farmers helping our own (FHOO)events

See here the link to all the events here. Also, you can check out their Facebook page for updates here. Also, see the flyer below. Reply to [email protected]

End of message.

Dwain Duxson
0427 011 900

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