Guest Editor – Tim Gibson

Tim Gibson Limited

(Automated milking and feeding)

 

I was utterly bowled over to be asked to kick off the guest editing of Ian’s   infamous blog when approached, I am genuinely humbled to be putting my own words to the followers of Ian Potter, a man who should still be with us, a man who never feared from ruffling a few feathers and spoke up for the farmer at every turn. 

There will be nobody with feet big enough to fill Ian’s boots on this platform, but hopefully a revolving guest editorial section of this blog can keep things ticking over.

I had the greatest respect for Ian, my first meeting was when at 21 years old I was asked to speak at “soap box corner” at the good old Stoneleigh Dairy Event on the “Dairy Farmer” stand.  I was up before Potter, and a massive crowd had gathered (obviously to hear him) I felt like an unknown warm up act coming on to play a flute before a Metallica set.  Ian could see my nerves, and gave me some sound advice, and from that day on he was always there if I needed a sounding board for one of my daft ideas or what I could say in one of my Dairy Farmer columns that wouldn’t get anyone into trouble.

Initially I am to do a brief introduction, some will have followed me writing in Dairy Farmer from the inception of ordering robotic milking machines for our farm in November 2000, through the ups and downs of fitting them, starting up and then onto diversifying into selling robots and equipment off the farm too.  I guess the more up to date news is that we sold the cows about 5 years ago (with help from Ian) and advice from Carl Woodcock that prices would never improve for at least the next 3 years; which was correct!  The farms now all arable, with a few suckler cows, (as more of a hobby).  The cow sheds are converted into a public self storage warehouse, and the stone barns are converted to rural offices for letting.  We do a little bit of groundworks contracting, some bagged feed sales and I still sell robots, milking machines and do advisory work to those with, or buying robots.  I am also pleased to say on a personal note I’m about to become a dad, we are expecting a baby in August!

 

Bits of news in “my” industry over the past few weeks: 

Suppliers of equipment to dairy farmers which are eligible for DEFRA grant funding recently lobbied ministers at the houses of parliament to complain / campaign for more time to process orders from farmers; who have been successful in getting grants for things like robotic milking machines.  It would seem that due to there being too few suppliers who can meet the conditions DEFRA set for the grant eligible items, those few suppliers are now struggling to “stash all the cash” that’s come their way, and want more time in which to take the orders and deliver the goods.  (Maybe to help them straddle a few tax years?)  They complain about a “feast or famine” with their order books!  I’d personally be a bit red faced to be down there with the begging bowl out when these companies have been the main benefactor of the grant money. Many say prices for a lot of “grant eligible” items have soared in the past couple of years, I’m not sure empathy should be with them, however another funded trip to meet the Dutch royal family might help swing a few MP’s or civil servants to bow to their requests.

British milking machine name Fullwood, has had an interesting year or so, with a Dutch take over a few years ago; followed by a Rabobank backed amalgamation with Joz last year.  Yesterday announcing a joining up with Mueller (tank manufacturers) which re-enable all Fullwood dealers to now sell Mueller equipment.  One furious Mueller dealer has commented to me that this is a stab in the back for those loyal to Mueller with basically any dealer now able to sell Mueller tanks, but few are properly geared up to service and maintain refrigeration equipment which has and remains a dairy industry issue across the country; the lack of technicians willing to work on farms.

Any comments can be emailed to tim@tim-gibson.co.uk