About Us - Practical Farm Ideas

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81 Vol 21-1. May - August 2012

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79 Vol 20 - Issue 3 - Autumn 2011

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What they say about us...

Well thought out, for the 'man of the land'!

JR Bayley, Cheltenham

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ABOUT PRACTICAL FARM IDEAS * The magazine is published on February 8, May 8, August 8 and November 8. * Each issue is full colour, 48 pages with 100 pictures. It carries no advertising. * Nearly 30 pages are under the heading of 'Made it Myself', and this includes a featured titled 'Farm Walk' where we explore a selected farm which uses much equipment that has been modified or built in the workshop. * Some 10 pages are headed 'Farm World' which includes a mixture of innovations from overseas, business and global news which impacts farmers. * Each issue has a 2 page feature 'Financial Focus' with management ideas for raising finance, cutting financial costs, managing money, saving tax. * Each issue starts with a single page 'Editor's Notebook' which excerpts and refers to farming events, some items being useful to readers who are looking for inspiration prior to a speech or farming address.
Made it Myself Each issue carries about 45 Made it Myself ideas. Some are small workshop gizmos which take up only a few column inches. Others are major engineering projects which need considerable explanation. The magazine provides working ideas, not blueprints. Photos provide details of critical features. Getting further details of projects is made as easy as possible. Issues between 1992 and 2000 generally provide followup information so contributors can be contacted directly. Issues since then mainly require contact through ourselves. Readers sometimes travel considerable distances to see home designed and built kit.
FarmWorld Our show reports feature the less obvious, but highly important items which can be overlooked by farmers visiting the shows, and also other farming media - we leave the mainstream farming press to cover new models from the major manufacturers. Touring agricultural events in the company of an expert is often very worthwhile. Design problems can be focussed on just as much as the new features.
Financial Focus The need for good effective money management is paramount in all farming businesses, and this feature, which has covered a different topic in each issue published since 1992, makes a farming business book in itself. Farmers recognise they are the target for some high pressure selling, both from dealers and service providers such as insurance companies, and this series of articles is written to provide some balance.

BACKGROUND TO PRACTICAL FARM IDEAS MAGAZINE The foundation of this magazine is closely linked to the experience and career of the founding editor. A farming childhood led to an influential 'gap year' in 1965-6 on a mixed farm run by a high achieving innovative tenant who built and ran the business from the basis of cost control. This was followed by a BSc in Agricultural Economics from Reading University, which led to a year career in economics and journalism with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and subsequently the Financial times in London, both organisations which focus on editorial over advertising.
Moving to a small dairy farm in West Wales in 1977 meant adopting methods learnt in the gap year. Costs were controlled, and the farm was able to expand without incurring massive debt. Coming across a US farming journal with no advertising titled farm Show, showed just how big the benefits of no advertising could be to the reader. So a call to Minnesota was made to suggest a European edition, and while this didn't happen, the result was creating, with the encouragement of the American editor, something on the same lines which was titled Practical Farm Ideas.
Communicating farming techniques and innovations In the late 1700s, farmers created societies like the RASE, Three Counties, Yorkshire which brought them together to show off and compete. They also could share and compare their methods. The growth of print resulted in a wide number of farming books and journals, written by authors who quickly earned a reputation of being experts. The 19th and 20th centuries saw the rapid development of the farm supply trade, first in machinery and quickly followed fertilisers, seeds, livestock. Companies began to provide advice linked to sales, and 'the rep' often became the first port of call for information.
Post the 2nd WW and government took a leading role in farm development, much provided free to the farmer. The ADAS man provided more than a generation of farmers with advice. Soil analysis, building design, budgets and farm planning, and some animal and crop health issues were all provided by a highly qualified expert who was a regular visitor on the more progressive farms. Many advisors did more than recite the text books and info sheets, but spread good practice which had originated as the idea of a clever farmer-client. Farmers began looking at experts for all their advice, and this was sometimes linked with the supply trade.
The near closure of 'free' information from government, together with increased competition in the farm supply trade, has led to the growth of farm consultants used by larger units, but has created something of a vacuum for the smaller family farm unable to support the fees of advisors who are not in the pay of a supplying company. Behind this, the farmer has always turned to his neighbours, colleagues and fellow toilers for advice, and our magazine simply increases the pool of advice. It enables farmers separated by hundreds of miles to compare and see practical ideas, without getting in the car, clicking and fighting a computer.
The role of Practical Farm Ideas magazine is relevant and, for many thousands of subscribers, has become an old and trusted friend.