Choosing an agricultural contractor whose core values of service, reliability, and innovation remain constant has never been more important for RG Contracting which has been in business for 30 years.
Based at Port William, Dumfries, and Galloway, the agricultural contractor is run by Russell and Lorraine Gaw along with their son, David (23). Daughter Lucy shows a keen interest in the business too, however, she is also busy with her PT business and playing netball for Scotland’s under-21 squad.
Offering a wide range of competitive and reliable farm contract services throughout Dumfries and Galloway as well as Coupar Angus and Dundee, the team has a ‘can do’ attitude backed by many years of experience and a solid reputation for reliability and industry knowledge.
All questions here were answered by Russell.
Background?
RG contracting was founded in 1994, after the family put the dairy cows off the farm.
I managed to purchase a Reco Mengele 40 chopper to get started beginning with our neighbours and it all really snowballed from there.
What areas do you cover?
Based at Port William, the main custom can be anywhere in south-west Scotland. More recently, we have been doing a lot of work in Coupar Angus and Carnoustie, near Dundee.
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What are the main services you supply?
In Dumfries and Galloway, it is very much all grass work, so we do everything apart from combining and spraying, as we don’t find there is a demand for it.
Further up the country we do a lot of digestate work out of three AD plants and have 2500 acres of drilling along with potato work.
How many staff do you employ?
We have 14 full-time staff, going up to 20 employees at peak times.
The labour market is super difficult just now – it is becoming harder to find competent guys who want to work the hours involved in agriculture. I personally think COVID had a fair bit to do with it – a lot of people got used to sitting at home getting paid.
The struggle for our industry is getting that work-life balance for our staff.
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How important are your staff to the business?
Staff are 100% the most important thing – if we don’t have them, we have nothing.
They are the ones who must communicate well with customers and complete a good, tidy job that the customer is looking for.
Our business relies on them, and we are very fortunate to have the team that we do have.
We want to treat them well so that they stay with us.
What keeps you busiest throughout the year?
Slurry all year round. However, we will be busier with silage from April to October.
I think we need to keep an eye on the slurry job, as I believe that by 2027 Scotland will become a Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ), which will mean we are not allowed to spread from October to February and will have to find a different avenue of work for the winter. The government is not giving farmers grants for slurry storage for no reason – they have a long-term plan.
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How do you manage the winter months?
Generally, the team is very good at understanding and will take their holidays from November to February.
We do all of our own in-house maintenance, with winter months being a prime time to get all of this done. By servicing all of our machinery this way we can maintain and look after our kit for longer.
We also have a lot of farm contracts, in which we will do their tractor work from feeding cattle to bedding cattle etc.
How often do you change your tractors?
Tractors will be turning 8000 to 10,000 hours in a lifetime, roughly four years old.
We generally tend to buy new tractors or ex-demonstrators as they come with a 6000-hour warranty. We find that any glitches are ironed out by then and we manage to free run them until they are sold.
How brand loyal are you?
We like to stick with what we know, so our fleet consists of 15 John Deere tractors and one Valtra. On the chopper front, we mainly run Krone now.
How does the weather impact the job?
Weather is everything. You can have the biggest day planned according to the forecast and when you get up the weather forecast isn’t right – you suddenly need to find jobs for 15 guys to send in different directions. It can be very testing at times.
How do you manage to run the business?
I do all the organising of jobs through an app, which is very good.
I input all the information, and it goes straight to the employees’ phones so they know exactly what they are doing that morning. They then record everything on it and Lorraine and Lynsey process it all back in the office.
It always saves us a lot of time and tracks machinery and employees – there are no secrets here!
How do you keep customers?
We have been very fortunate that our customers are loyal – some of them have been with me since I started.
Timeliness is very important to us. When we say a time, we try our very best to stick to that (weather permitting, of course). I always say ‘An hour in the morning is worth two in the evening’.
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Having a big team means when jobs come in we can usually manage to attend to them in a time frame that suits both the customer and us.
Our customer base is very important to us – we want to try and have equipment that suits all of their needs and what they do. However, it also has to be financially viable as machinery costs are soaring.
Do you offer any niche services?
The Vredo self-propelled liquid manure spreader is something new to us and there is definitely a niche in the market for it.
The method of slurry application has a huge impact on how much of its nutrient value you actually deliver to the land – there can be a phenomenal difference.
A value that can range from a minimal 5% loss using a cultivate injection system to about 75% loss when using a splash-plate.
What restrictions are affecting this job?
I do think there is going to be more of an emphasis on slurry in the future, with legislation already brought in from January 2023.
If a contractor is spreading slurry on behalf of the farmer as of January 2023, the slurry must be applied using precision technics. If a dairy farm is milking more than 100 cows and a beef unit has more than 200 livestock units and produces slurry, then the slurry must be applied using precision technology from January 2023. From January 2027, all slurry produced on farms, no matter of type or size, must be applied by these precision application methods.
They are getting a lot stricter on restrictions, and it is making it harder to invest in the right kit that is going to service the job.
It is a struggle for farmers to invest the money into new dribble plate or slurry tankers for the eye-watering price of their value. Farmers need to realise that slurry is not a waste product – we need to start utilising our resources, especially with the price of fertiliser.
Farmers are paying to spread the slurry regardless so should pay to spread it properly and more efficiently.
What struggles come with contracting?
Weather and recruiting staff.
What changes have you seen over the years?
The biggest change would be the technology within the kit.
The John Deere operation system captures vital operational data to boost transparency and increase productivity for your business.
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It allows us to plan in advance and send the job information directly to the individual machines, and workers get the information straight to their phone.
There are no delays setting up in the field and no mistakes due to misunderstanding or lack of information.
Everything comes back to my computer, and I have traceability of my team.
How have prices varied over the years?
In the last six years, the price of tractors has more than doubled. I purchased the exact same tractor this year as I did in 2018, and it is near enough double. We have to try to manage all of these costs by keeping machinery for longer and maintaining them better.
Wages, parts, and insurance costs have all risen sharply in the past few years and it is difficult costing jobs to mitigate this.
Industry concerns?
There are a lot of regulations coming into play and not all are helping the future of the industry.
The government is trying to push no-diesel engines, but hydrogen fuel is very difficult to store. Long term, I don’t know what solutions there are and how they are going to power all this equipment.
What advice would you give to a new contractor?
Don’t come in all guns blazing by undercutting everyone – you will get nowhere, and you won’t be able to keep it up.
Think about who you are doing the work for and ask yourself why you have been asked to do it as opposed to their usual contractor.
If you have the money to invest in machinery, go and invest it in something else that won’t depreciate.
List of inventory
Krone Big X 1180
Krone Big X 980
Vredo VT 4546
John Deere 7R330
John Deere 6R 215 x 2
John Deere 6R 195
John Deere 6R 175 x 2
John Deere 6R 185 x 2
John Deere 6R 155r
John Deere 6R 145 x 5
John Deere 6R 150
Valtra T235
JCB 435s
JCB 420s
JCB 403
Claas Scorpion
Doosan 140
JCB JS130
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