Cairns Contracting, an agri-contracting business based in Waringstown, Co Armagh, is run by entrepreneur Garth Cairns. What makes this story different from any other is the fact that Garth started from nothing, not even having an agricultural background, to build one of the most impressive contracting businesses in the country, as well as being the main man behind the successful slurry equipment manufacturer SlurryKat.

Garth’s father is a general fabricator and it is from him he developed the hands-on practicality which he still uses. From a young age, Garth was always interested in farm machinery. “I never played with cars as a child – it was always tractors.”

At the age of eight, Garth first got behind the wheel of a tractor helping out on a local dairy farm for a bit of extra pocket money, driving a Massey 35 with a yard scraper. It was here that he fell in love with farming and, the following year, he bought himself two calves on a small piece of land the family owned. Little did he know that by the age of 18 he would be renting a farm and own 120 beef cattle. In 1995, at the age of 15, Garth bought his first tractor, a John Deere 2130, and built his first implement, a silage trailer for behind it.

I never played with cars as a child – it was always tractors

Garth started helping out local farmers draw their silage as most farmers harvested their own grass at that time. The 2130 was traded for a John Deere 1640, which was traded again for a larger John Deere 3040. This was a big step for Garth as it was the first six-cylinder tractor he owned and opened a lot of doors to more heavy work. He also built another silage trailer, which he hired out to farmers. 1999 saw the first mower enter the yard in the form of a John Deere 1360 which was accompanied by a John Deere 3650 tractor, allowing Garth to expand his services.

Garth finished school in 1999, which admittedly his mother pushed him through, and served his time with his father doing fabrication. He wanted to find work for his tractors during the winter and approached a local plant hire contractor who said if he had a dump trailer, he could give him work six days a week all through the winter. Garth immediately returned to the workshop and built a dump trailer.

Giving up cattle

That winter, Garth also purchased an umbilical slurry system from SlurryKat and took on his first employee to help with the increasing workload. In 2000, Garth made the difficult decision to give up the cattle. “I enjoyed them and gained a greater understanding of farming because of them but I had to concentrate on the contracting.”

In 2001, a used John Deere 6600 was added to help meet the demands of the increasing volume of work. This tractor is still in the fleet today, with a massive 24,000 hours on the clock.

That year, three customers approached Garth to ask if he would consider getting his own harvester and doing the complete silage job as they were getting too busy with cows. Garth thought about this and, in 2002, he bought a John Deere 6750 forager as well as a John Deere 6400 tractor with front linkage on to which he fitted a push-off fork. In the first year, he harvested 700 acres between those three customers over three separate cuts. It went so well that in November Garth purchased his first new tractor, a John Deere 6820 for £42,500. This was only traded for a new tractor this autumn. This tractor was promptly fitted on to a Doda slurry pump, putting up over 3,000 hours on the clock in its first year.

As work rapidly progressed, it became apparent that the weakest link in the system was the mower and push-off fork. To remedy this, Garth bought 10ft front- and rear-mounted John Deere mowers, which he fitted to the 6820 along with front linkage and PTO. The push-off fork was then fitted to a new John Deere 6520 to help keep the grass away faster.

In 2005, Garth expanded into plant hire by purchasing a Komatsu PC120 12t excavator to work alongside the dump trailers. The 6520 was replaced on the pit by a John Deere 3200 telehandler which Garth admits was a great improvement.

2006 saw the business expand into the tillage sector through the purchase of a four-furrow Kverneland reversible plough, 3m Greenland power harrow on to which a Vicon drill was fitted and a Massey Ferguson 24 combine with 12ft head for harvesting.

Milestone

2007 was to be the single biggest milestone in the Cairns Contracting story. The owner of SlurryKat approached Garth to see if he would be interested in buying it as Garth was already working closely with SlurryKat on new ideas and designs since buying his first umbilical system in 1999. Over the next few months, the deal was done and Garth was now the proud owner of SlurryKat. As he already had a workshop, he moved SlurryKat to its new home where it is still located and took on four employees, with production starting in December 2007.

Garth set about using his hands-on expertise from working the machines in the field to redesign and develop a complete new range fronted with the slogan “designed by contractors, built by engineers”. Garth’s background in contracting allowed SlurryKat to fill the gap often left between the manufacturer and the user.

At this stage, Garth took a step back from the contracting to focus on SlurryKat and employed manager Tim Black to run the contracting business but tells me he still gets behind the wheel whenever he can for “stress relief”.

In 2009, SlurryKat started manufacturing slurry tankers purpose-designed for slurry applicators, which today amount to 50% of total sales.

The contracting remained steady, with no new machines added until 2011, when the 6750 forager was replaced by a larger John Deere 7700 and joined by two new John Deere 6930 and a 7530 tractors.

2013 saw three new John Deere 6930 tractors arrive in the yard along with Claas 9100 butterfly mowers and groupers. To handle the increasing workload, a second forager was added to the fleet in 2014 in the form of a John Deere 7750, as well as two John Deere 6150M tractors and a Claas 4000 rake.

2015 saw a larger JCB 435 (pictured) fitted with a 15ft SlurryKat folding fork join the stable, which Garth admits is one of his favourite machines. To tackle the mowing, a new John Deere 7290R was also purchased.

In 2016, the 7750 forager was replaced by a John Deere 8800 which Garth says is capable of devouring 200 acres a day comfortably, while the 7700 forager was kept as a backup machine for the busy periods in first cut.

Two new John Deere 6155M tractors were added, one with auto steer to allow spreading of slurry with the dribble bar system day or night.

Today, the contracting business is grass- and slurry-based with the grass accounting for around 75% of annual turnover. Each year, the company harvests over 5,000 acres of grass and carries out over 2,500 hours of umbilical slurry spreading all within a 30-mile radius of its base, serving on average 100 customers. Garth has grown the contracting business from employing one to 10 people and the SlurryKat business from four to 40 employees, all in a relatively short space of time. Each side of the business is kept separate and must stand on its own feet. “The contracting built itself and must sustain itself; the same goes for SlurryKat.”

So what are the biggest challenges facing the business? “Costs are always the biggest challenge, we try to keep costs down by doing as much mechanical maintenance as we can ourselves. If we keep the costs down we can pass the savings on to our customers. The weather is another major problem as the windows are constantly getting smaller to get the work done, which has led to us investing in bigger, more efficient machines. As always, money is a challenge, but thankfully we know our customers and work with them as best we can. A lot of them have set up monthly pay plans, which helps to keep the cashflow going.’’

From looking around the machinery shed, it is clear to see that Garth has no problem in buying secondhand machines and what is even more surprising is that he keeps some machines going to well over 20,000 hours. But why does he bother with contracting anymore, especially with the successful SlurryKat business? “I do it for the love of machinery. It is where I started and I will continue to keep it going as its own business.” So what does the future hold? “I want to keep offering a good, reliable and efficient service to our customers and also grow the SlurryKat business organically by developing new innovative products.”