'Contractors are first to be called and last to be paid' - new FCI chair

Richie White from Drangan, Thurles, Co Tipperary, was elected as the new national chair of the Association of Farm Contractors of Ireland (FCI) at its fifth AGM, held at the site of the FTMTA Grass & Muck event in Gurteen College last week.

Richie, who has been vice-chair for the past two years, runs Slievenamon Agri Services, a well-established 20-year-old farm contracting business, along with his brothers Martin and John. He is a past pupil of Gurteen College and has been active in representing contractors at European level through the CEETTAR organisation. Richie White takes over from John Sheehy from Limerick.

Farmers and contractors must be more organised, contractors can no longer be treated as the fire brigade and called at the last minute

“Farmers and contractors must be more organised, contractors can no longer be treated as the fire brigade and called at the last minute”, Richie White told the Irish Farmers Journal following his election. He says he has seen contracting becoming increasingly pressurised over his 20 years working in the industry.

“It is not the same as 20 years ago, where you can just sit into a tractor and go. The machinery has become much more powerful and contractors are under a lot more pressure to get work done quickly. Due to the weather we get, the silage season has got ridiculous with a massive volume of work being carried out in such a short period of time,” he said.

Richie is adamant contractors have to see change. “There needs to be a mentality shift in Irish agriculture where the importance of the contractor is highlighted and appreciated. They are always the first to be called and the last to be paid. It needs to be a partnership between farmers and contractors where a plan is set out at the beginning of the year allowing both farmers and contractors to arrange a payment structure where the contractor is not left until the end of the year before they are paid.”

High costs

“There are a lot of costs on contractors,” Richie continued. “People wouldn’t believe the cashflow required to keep the tractors on the road every week and now we have the extra cost of upgrading trailers to comply with new regulations.”

With the recent focus on health and safety throughout the entire agriculture sector, contractors are no exception according to Richie, “There needs to be a proper training programme put in place for those who wish to go contracting, to ensure they are able to safely operate machinery. Contractors are already under time pressure and just don’t have the time to go training any young farmer that comes along. There are courses set up in other European countries where young farmers are trained to use these potentially dangerous machines to a high standard and we need something like this in Ireland.”

Spring work three weeks late

Despite cash flow pressure on farms, there has not been a drop in business for contractors so far this year according to Richie. However spring work is three weeks behind due to the slow spring. “This is putting pressure on contractors to get work done before the busy silage season kicks off in the next couple of weeks,” he said.

Norman Egar from Kildare was elected as the new FCI vice-chair, while Peter Farrelly and Christopher Weldon were re-elected as secretary and treasurer, respectively. Padraic O’Brien from Clonmel was elected as assistant secretary.

Michael Moroney contributed reporting for this story