Irish Farm & Forestry Contractors employ close to 10,000 people operating machines on Irish farms
FCI has launched its Fuel Cost Index Calculator for use by all agricultural contractors in Ireland.
To use the calculator as a contractor you need to know your overall annual costs across a number of cost headings for your business and this is easily available from your accountant. Once you key in the financial cost figures and also your overall agri-diesel consumption in litres, you will get an index value that is unique to your agricultural contracting business.
You then move to the Calculate the Break-Even Charge Rates section, and you have a number of options to choose from including rate per hour for work such as hedge cutting, rate per acre for silage harvesting, for example and rate per tonne for transporting grain from the field to the farm. All of the figures combine your overall cost index with the level of fuel consumption for each operation in an agricultural contractor fleet, to deliver a break-even figure that you need to work from in order to remain profitable and sustainable.
Click here https://fcicalculator.ie/
The average spend per Irish farm on Farm Contractor Services is €7,079 per annum. As there are 137,000 farmers in Ireland, the total annual spend on Farm Contracting Services by Irish farmers is over €900 million.
There are 76,581 agricultural tractors registered for use on public roads in Ireland – 20% of them of 15,500 are in Farm & Forestry Contractor fleets
The 1,100 Farm & Forestry Contractors now listed on the FCI database, each work across an average of three Irish farms per day. This amounts to 3,000 farmer and Farm Contractor interactions each day or 18,000 farmer and over 500,000 interactions each working season, making the Farm & Forestry Contractor the greatest influencer in terms of farm efficiency
Supported by FBD Insurance
FCI Objectives
To represent agricultural contractors at the highest level with
politicians and the Department of Agriculture in Ireland and Europe.
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To promote good contractor / farmer relationships.
To promote the benefits of a good agricultural contracting service.
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To provide members with knowledge and courses to help them run their businesses.
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To provide a good working relationship between contractors
Latest News from FCI
Contractor’s Role needs to be supported – Minister for Agriculture
The Association of Farm & Forestry Contractors in Ireland (FCI) held its annual contractor conference in December, where more than 150 agricultural contractors attended the FBD Insurance sponsored event at the Heritage Hotel, Killenard, Laois in December 2023.
The FCI Conference was officially opened by Minister for Agriculture, Food, and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, TD, and he told the delegates that the role of the contractor was a very important one, that it needs to be valued and supported. He said that he believed that the role would be even more important in the years ahead.
The Minister added, “I very much recognise the importance of a viable and professional contracting service for farmers which is fundamental in any delivery of the environmental and economic goals, now inherent to the Irish agriculture sector. I think it’s fair to say that the agriculture sector has been transformed over the years. It’s also clear that the contracting fraternity have played a huge role in this transformation.”
On the issue of TAMS grant aid for contractors, the Minister said, “The reasons as to why contractors cannot be included is due to regulation within the CAP which requires TAMS to be directed towards either farmers or groups of farmers. So, while contractors who are also farmers can avail of TAMS, contractors who aren’t farmers cannot. The State aid conditionality is tied to the CAP, which means it is not a technical possibility for our Government to fund this,” he added. He told the conference that where a contractor is a farmer, there is no restriction using machinery that was TAMS grant aided, in the contracting side of the farm business.
Many of our FCI members whether trading as limited companies or sole traders, represent up generations of rural-based family businesses who have dedicated their entire working lives to the provision of mechanised services to Irish farming from the threshing mills of the 1920’s to today’s high performance and GPS controlled, harvesters and tractors.
FCI Conference 2023 Mininster Welcome Speech - Martin Fleming, FCI Vice Chair
Minister McConalogue, ladies, and
gentlemen, welcome to the FCI National
Contractor Conference 2023. My name is
Martin Fleming, I’m an agricultural
contractor and farmer from Mountbellew
in Galway and National Vice Chair of FCI
and Chair of the Galway, Clare, and Mayo
region. I have been involved in FCI since
it was formed in 2012.
To begin with, on your behalf as FCI
members, I welcome Minister
McConalogue to our Conference. I want
to register our appreciation that you
Minister, have taken time from your busy schedule to open our Conference today. Your presence here is an important recognition for us that you and your Department value the huge contribution that our members make to the business of Irish agriculture.
For too long we believe that the contribution that agricultural and forestry contractors make to the Irish agricultural sector has been overlooked. Behind all of the faces that you see here today, Minister, there are decades of dedicated hard work, there are generations of families who have devoted their life’s work to servicing the needs of Irish farm and forests owners.
They are the people who have brought Irish farming from the threshing mill to the auto-steer tractor with GPS fertiliser spread control. They have invested in the progress, and they have a belief in Irish agriculture. And they are the people who want recognition and fair treatment today.
In welcoming you today Minister we look forward to your opening address and your thoughts on our theme of the future for Farm & Forestry Contracting. Thank you Minister McConalogue and I call on you now to deliver the opening address.
Dutch Contractors facing labour and cost challenges - Hero Dijkema, CUMELA
Hero Dijkema, Policy Officer for
Agricultural Traffic and Transport at the
Dutch Contractors Association,
CUMELA, provided a background as to
how contractors in the Netherlands are
coping with significant changes.
Hero told the FCI contractors that the
challenges for Dutch contractors
included, uncertainty about the
agricultural sector, issues around
Nitrogen and manure spreading, and
issues of climate change and energy transition.
He said that contractors are finding it difficult to pass on rising costs to their customers and that skilled staff are more difficult to find. There are hardly new employees anymore, due to growth of the Dutch economy. Hero predicted that the shortages in the labour market will increase until 2030.
Other issues for contractors include higher financing costs for new machine investments. He told the contractors that in the Netherlands banks are requiring more collateral, while interest rates have risen sharply. There is more focus from the bank on the return of a single investment so that without a good financing plan with investment costs and returns, it is increasingly difficult for Dutch contractors to get bank funding. He said that for a combination of these reasons, some contractors were leaving the business in 2024.
FCI National Chair John Hughes Conference 2023 closing speech
Many thanks to all of those who contributed to
our event today. At the outset, I would like to
thank FBD Insurance for their continuing
support of the work that FCI does and in
particular for their sponsorship of the
2023 Conference event.
My name is John Hughes, I’m a second-generation
agricultural contractor along with my brother Brendan
from Danville, Kilkenny, and National Chair of FCI.
I have been involved in FCI since it was formed in 2012.
I would like to thank our special guest Minister McConalogue, who provided our opening address. We thank the Minister for honouring us with his presence and listening to our concerns.
And also, thanks to Joe Patton of Teagasc for a very practical presentation. We thank Hero Dijkema, who travelled from CUMELA in the Netherlands to give us a view of how contractors there are coping with some very significant changes. Thanks to Tom Kelly for giving us an insight into how quality assurance works in the tillage sector and why we need to consider it as part of the quality message that we as contractors can give our farmer clients.
We had a very interesting Contractor’s Den session where some new ideas were floated. While I appreciate it was a fast session, we hope that you found that information useful.
This is my second term in the National Chair role and there remains a number of issues that FCI continues to challenge. These include:
• Lack of machinery grant support for contractors while farmers (our clients get grants for machinery purchase)
• A detailed review of the calendar farming system to replace it with a science-based system similar to the current blight warning system, for guidance on the timing of environmentally sensitive operations such as slurry, farmyard manure and artificial fertilizer applications
• Lack of dedicated training to encourage new entrants and to retain and upskill existing operators for the farm and forestry contracting sector
• A need to ring fence supplies of HVO for our sector along with removing Carbon Tax from this new generation fuel, as we aim to fulfil our ambitions for lower Carbon emissions, using existing power technology in a sustainable way
• Updating of tractor driver licences to reflect a modern agricultural contracting sector
• Seeking a Government funded Research Grant to independently analyse value-added of the Agricultural and Forestry Contractor sector in Ireland
We are active on many of these areas on your behalf both in Ireland, lobbying various national bodies for change and across Europe. We maintain regular contacts with the Department of Agriculture and other farming organisations and have played active roles on some committees established by the Minister. We have been active members of CEETTAR, the European Confederation of Agricultural, Rural and Forestry Contractors. Our interactions with our European counterparts are essential as Europe has a significant impact on your activities as contractors.
Now, as I turn to you here today and look down this impressive room of rural-based contractors, I want you to understand that we need you to become more active members of your FCI. Our Executive Council team have taken FCI to where it is today. We need new people to take on the responsibility to bring FCI forward to the next level. We have seen what our European counterparts have achieved, we have put the foundations in place and forward we must go.
We have reached our targets in terms of membership subscriptions, thanks to the dedicated work of our new Managing Director, Ann Gleeson Hanrahan. Ann thank you for your work on behalf of all FCI members.
There are now more opportunities to grow FCI and develop more services for members. We need to expand our team both in terms of the office back-up and also by having some fresh faces on the Executive Council. We need your ideas, your enthusiasm, your passion, and your dedication to make FCI a better organisation for all rural-based contractors in Ireland.
Develop payment schedules to match the service offering
- Joe Patton, Teagasc
Joe Patton, Teagasc told the FCI Conference
2023 about trends and projections in
livestock numbers between 2015 and 2030
on Irish dairy farms, and the implications for
contractors of the changes to Nitrates
regulations, future trends and requirements
for livestock systems including issues around
forage requirements, slurry and effluent
management and labour needs.
He told the FCI contractors that recent survey data has indicated most dairy farmers intend to retain or grow herd size. He added that some farmers who are examining reduced stocking rates are considering the need for extra land as their preferred option. He predicted that this would lead to further fragmentation of holdings and the greater use of external silage blocks of land adding to silage harvesting time and costs.
Joe Patton told the FCI contractors that there was now a higher priority given to grass silage and he predicted that there will be a move towards more quality silage involving multi-cut systems. He said that this will bring a greater requirement to transfer slurry to external blocks of land. And finally, he urged contractors to discuss and develop payment schedules for their services to match this service offering.
Contractors can learn from Irish Grain Assurance Scheme - Tom Kelly IGAS
Tom Kelly of IGAS, the Irish Grain
Assurance Scheme, outlined the history
behind the scheme and its current success.
The scheme has now over 4,000 members
and now monitors 95% of the traded grain
in Ireland.
Tom Kelly put some additional emphasis
on the need for trailer identification. He
said that it was a crucial part of Farm
Sustainability Assessment (FSA) and that it was particularly important for the drinks, flour, and porridge industries. He told the meeting that the haulage industry already has it on all trailers, indicated by the trailer number plate size and he urged all contractors to follow a similar approach with tractor trailers. The ID can be a stick on, painted, magnetic, or number plate system, and it is important that it can be visible from the weighbridge at the delivery point.
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