All editorial.  No advertising.  48 pages.  Four issues per year.  Published since 1992

Are you getting useful cost cutting ideas from your advisors?    

 Are they advising how to spend rather than save? 

Many farmers have devised ways to do the work at less cost, both in time and money. We invite, discover and encourage them to share what they have done. The farming tips we have learned are truly amazing. 

Try a subscription and you’ll want more. You’ll soon see how advertising and sponsorship from BigAg directs and restricts the content of regular farm magazines.  

  You can discover dozens, hundreds, of cutting edge ideas on this website. As always, you’ll ask yourself “Why didn’t I do this years ago?” 

You know that farming is facing a crisis, with input and farm gate prices yo-yo-ing, government farm and rural policy remaining vague, and advisors often working on figures from 2020 which bear little relevance today.   

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'Helping farmers cut costs'  is fundamental to our publication, and the phased elimination of farming subsidy means this work has never been so important.  

There are money saving ideas on every page, from a length of baler twine to show air movement in a cattle shed (pg 15) to a farm designed and built rape seed drill (pg 31). 

Farms are becoming Ltd companies yet few use the full benefits provided. Tax advantaged share schemes sound complex, but once set up they tick along saving  money with little effort needed. (pg 25).

Changing a muckspreader fitted with twin axles to running on a single commercial axle fitted with Fastrac wheels makes sense when spreading across slopes as the four bald tyres are happy to go sideways. (pg 20). Even this is money saving, making less mess in the field and reducing the chance of the tractor being pulled over. 

Practical Farm Ideas continues to do what the title says. No advertisers or sponsors means zero selling of products or services. Cutting costs means reducing expenditure while maintaining or increasing production. We used to call it husbandry! 

Our cover pictures:
top - FarmWalk (pgs 37 - 47) is on a 350 acre hill farm in north Staffordshire. Unconventional methods include using out of date tractors which are now collectible, like the Roadless Super Major which has been used for more than 30 years.

bottom - Iseki compact has autosteer to make an accurate job with Avadex and other products. The Horstein spreader is mounted on a home designed and built trailer

Financial Focus We review 12 YouTube sites featuring financial advice for smaller companies. Click for a Farm Ideas subscription

Cover:

top - Winners and finalists of the Soil Farmer of the Year... top performing farmers whose soil condition is being improved; 

bottom - A 6m whole crop header is making super-food for cows: a mix of barley, oats, peas, vetches, clover,

Save £thousands with the Financial Focus that explains the workings of the highly tax efficient Small Self-Administered Pension Scheme. 
 

Farm Safety: As UK farm deaths reach another high of 41 we claim that farm safety is  'in chaos' and believe the industry should demand a real change in policy. 

'Made it Myself'  innovations from farm workshops continue to help readers in a practical way. The projects vary very widely both in scale and skill required, and, as we have said before, there's no disgrace in asking for local help. 

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Cover: top - Lamb creep feeder uses plastic barrel and two tyres;  bottom - 'Made it Myself'  Land leveller for poached grass, ruts and damaged soil 

This issue is the start of our 30th year of publication - an impressive milestone we are very proud to have achieved.  'Made it Myself'  innovations from farm workshops continue to help readers in a practical way. The projects vary very widely both in scale and skill required, and, as we have said before, there's no disgrace in asking for local help. 

Below is a small selection of this issue's contents. 

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Published at the height of the Covid pandemic, this issue has some great workshop projects which will provide a positive contribution to the farm for years to come. Getting away from any feeling of despair, here are ideas which you can achieve over the winter months in both workshop and office. The aim is to help make your Covid time constructive. 

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Start your subscription with this issu

Practical Farm Ideas Vol 28  issue 4   

Feb - May 2020  #112

Farm safety; 'Made it Myself' beef housing; farm borrowing interest rates

By popular request the cover design has returned to a single pic of man and machine, and this farm safety one couldn't be more appropriate. A double camera system means you can see traffic approaching from both left and right. The idea comes from Niall Murphy who farms in Co Armagh, N Ireland. If you're into beef, pages 39, 40, 41, 42 show what you can do with crash barriers. Pg 26 has an article ‘Reasons why the beef situation in Ireland is critical’. The financial piece on 21 makes sobering reading about interest rates, which have never been so low for so long.

Information and bright ideas are going to be crucial in future years as the transition period leaving the EU progresses.

This 48 page issue visits both arable and livestock farms who all  have individual cost-cutting ideas and innovations from the farm workshop and the farm manager's desk (or kitchen table). 

"This 48 page all editorial issue, price £4.35 and annual subscription £16.50, includes:  

"Made it Myself" projects of genuine help for all farmers

Financial Focus Setting realistic goals for financial success

LAMMA 2019 reveals fascinating system of using sulphuric acid to remove ammonia from cattle and pig sheds and ten other gems which you may have missed at the show

This issue contains 61 articles

'Can't put down' farm reading

Whether your farming is large scale or small, 

arable or livestock; whether you have good workshop skills

or are a beginner...  

this is for you.

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48 pages full of new ideas that help
     -  build the farm business
     -  save farm costs

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Issue 26-1 May - Aug 2017

*  51 Made it Myself Farm Workshop Projects  

*  Finance and farm admin - do you know your partnership/company agreements and partner/shareholder rights?

*  Grassland management and the use of data
 

Thinking constructively for a better farming industry

Welcome once more to the different farming magazine. The one full of projects and ideas made in workshops on farms and barns… machines, tools and equipment you won't see anywhere else but which really make a difference.
        NB:  We continue with a policy of accepting no advertising.

Publication date:  Nov 8, 2016

Made it Myself from three innovative Dutch dairy farms.  Some of their ideas not seen in the UK yet could well be very helpful in containing costs and reducing waste. Their aim is efficient milk production.
 

FarmWalk visits a farm on Salisbury Plain, Wilts which runs a herd of 450 sucklers. They keep all stock until 20 months, outwinter the stock and have been rotating paddocks for the past 20 years. They cart most of the water in converted oil tankers. 
 

Financial Focus looks at the real implications for farmers of Brexit - the biggest change in UK farming for the past 50 years. It suggests some directions which farmers might think of moving in the next few years.
 

FarmWorld  takes a look at the new farm management at the National Trust property in Worcestershire, Croome Court, where meadows and controlled grazing have replaced arable land.  

We learn about the intricacies and results of commercial grass breeding from James Ingles of Barenburg, and how trial varieties are selected for 'the list' of recommended varieties.
 

Soil+ Cover Cropping International:  Clive Bailye has been zero-tilling for 6 years and won the title 'Soil Farmer of the Year"
 

42 Made it Myself ideas and projects in this issue

* The start of our 25th year of publishing

*39 time and money saving projects for every farm

*Helping readers improve margins, control costs, prepare for the future

CONTENTS: You get all this, and more, in Practical Farm Ideas #96 Feb-May 2016

Incorporating SOIL+ Cover Cropping International

Welcome to Practical Farm Ideas Vol 24-3 published on Nov 21 2015

• 48 all-editorial pages. Practical cost-cutting opportunities.

• Tax advice for farmers selling/developing land

• Soil+ Cover Cropping: rotations, techniques, seed drill, benefits

• Made it Myself: inspirational machines, made on low budgets, from farm workshops.

Start your subscription - £16.50/year - with this important issue.

The Keep-it-Simple Guide to Profitable Farming

Some highlights in this issue

	Round baler: carry a full day's supply of net wrap using this roof rack. Carry three spare rolls on the baler rather than just the one which McHale provide. If there's not much left on the one in the chamber you'll have run out by lunchtime. Saves tying them on the baler or trying to stuff them in the cab.
	Mixer wagon repair: the two augers cost £7,000. These have been fitted with replaceable Hardox wear plates. They will last much longer, so the machine mixes better for longer. Ownership costs of this JF Stoll are reduced, and long term performance improved. Plates are fitted in the yard - farmer can supply.
	Dairy:  home designed and built 36:36 rapid entrance and exit for 360 cows. Made with second hand parts the novel design works exceptionally well. If you're staying in milk and have a small old parlour, this is definitely worth a close look
	Soil: it's less trendy than machinery but actually far more important. Our Soil+ section explains about soil quality evaluation; reducing compaction; building organic matter; contending with blackgrass; zinc - an essential micro-nutrient; adapting a Moore drill; Sentry Farming experiments with cover crops
	Financial: eke out the milk cheque - and manage the crisis. This article takes a look at how Tesco is handling it's current crisis, and thinks there are lessons for their supplying farmers as well. The article explains the dangers of using companies who promise to consolidate your debt. Persuasive and beguiling, some of these companies have built a reputation of ending up owning the farm they are supposedly helping.  Three pages of essential radingin times when the cash flow is under pressure
	Tractor front weight: this home made frame saves tyre wear and diesel. Single mass front weights often put more over the front axle than is needed. Here you have weight sections, storage and a rock tray. Practical!

Grass: sward lifters reduce compaction, but use them at the wrong time and they slice off the tap root of grass plants, damaging yields

Safety: this home made axle jack allows a bottle jack to be used to lift a high axle machine like a self prop sprayer in safety

Total workshop projects in the issue:  43       Total pages: 48

Subscription earns 2 BASiS  and 2 DairyPro points. 

This magazine is all editorial, carries no advertising

"It's probably my favourite publication. I'm not sure why but I find your English easy to read, understand and honest." Frankie Colwill, farmer, Worcester.

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May-Aug 2014 Vol 23-1 #89

Welcome to issue 89, which includes Soil + Cover Cropping International

Issue summary

Workshop innovations include some useful safety ideas. Take a look at the engineered prop for a tipping ttrailer body, used in place of the normal fencing stake or length of 4 x 4. It locks in place so can't be knocked sideways by animals or over-excited children. Gives peace of mind, and perhaps avoids the million to one chance accident occuring.

There are 43 workshop projects from a boot scraper to a modified chaser bin, a cubicle designed so cows can never get stuck in them, a high security workshop door design...  in all 43 original projects. Plus a Financial Focus of real importance to every farmer. Available: through a subscription from here £16.50 for the year.

Welcome to issue #88 Feb to May 2014

Readers will see that our cover now reads 'Incorporating SOIL + COVER CROPPING INTERNATIONAL. 

Over the past year we have published a major article on Cover Cropping in each issue. Interest from many readers has been considerable, not least because Cover Cropping techniques are not well publicised. It remains a niche system in Britain, even though it is expanding very rapidly in other countries, both in Europe and n and S America. The topic needs a specialist publication.

Hello and welcome to the new issue.

We had a great choice of cover stories. 

Should we feature a home made stirrer 'Mixing a 37% Return on Invested Capital' in a farm biogas plant? and what one farmer can do, so can another. 

Or the Farm Walk farmer who has cut diesel use from 20 to 3 litres/ha for crop establishment?

Or maybe a really lightweight zero grazer which keeps fresh grass in front of cows housed because of wet weather. A simple innovation which makes money by holding up milk yields in inclament weather.

Fourthly there was a home built cultivator, a real tool for heavy land work, and a different design which other Min-Till merchants will be interested in. With a picture good enough for a calendar!

We settled on the home built cultivator! The slurry image wasn't visually exciting, even if the 37% was outstanding. The handful of earth looked good, but how many would see the massive implications of the picture? The forager wasn't the clearest picture...  the problems of editorial!

CONTENTS of 22-2  AUG - NOV 2013
The cover story is a home made compost machine, and we're going to hear a lot more about compost in the next ten years, for two reasons: there is an increasing commercial market for compost as growers and garden centres use it to replace peat, which is to be illegal in six years. Compost is a useful soil conditioner, needed by a lot of farm land today which has had reduced levels of organic material. Farm made compost adds to fertility, compensating for the increasing price of bagged nutrients.

Readers of the last issue will have been fascinated by the article of Cover Cropping, which is another way of imroving soil condition and reducing fertiliser needs. The scheme needs a roller to flatten, or 'terminate' Cover Crops and the Rodale Institute has come up with a design which is becoming the blueprint that farmers in the USA are following. The issue of PFI shows how one can be made, and also shows some improvements made to that design by other farmers.

Other machines of interest include:

For livestock: A tip-up crush for cattle feet trimming. A calf milk mixer, dispenser. Round bale unwinder. Working with milking robots.

For arable: Early drilling - varieties and seed rates. managing Cover Crops profitably.  
Tungsten cultivator point welds to any leg.

For the workshop: Bender for re-bar and other steel. Putting a new heavy floor with curved sides in dumper. New welding clamp. Work frame rotates mini body shell for easy work - adaptable for other machines. Trailer with roll-on deck lighting idea.  

For general farm work:  A couple of log splitters. A heavy capacity concrete bridge, 12ft wide.

For the contractor: Novel barrel carrier for s-p harvester.

There's also a new section - Young Farm Enterprise, and the Farm Walk is on a truly mixed farm which has embraced automation and integrates enterprises.

FarmWorld features the work in the tropics done by a farmer from Cornwall, (also a Cambridge scientist) who has developed a way to help 'slash and burn' farmers in the tropics. It's a staggering story.

As always, I have had great enjoyment putting this issue together, and I hope you will pick up on some of that enjoyment when you read it. Of course, I also hope you will find something of immediate benefit to you and your farming. Should you have something to contribute, please get in touch

Gallery

Cover story
Our contributor farms 1000 clay acres on the Essex coast, 500 arable and 500 grass. He failed to find a heavy press to match his 175HP NH 7030.  Using Auto-Cad on his computer, he designed and built his double-press.

Practical Farm Ideas Vol 21 issue 4

Publication date:  Feb 8, 2013

Cover price: £3.85

With 48 workshop projects from farms all over the UK, this issue provides all farmers with some great time and money saving ideas. From the attention grabbing 32ft bale trailer carrying 48 big square bales that are held in a unique frame - saving the time taken to rope and strap, and then un-strap - to some clever modofications to a Keenan feeder, this issue provides active farmers with many practical farming ideas.

Digital Copies on CD sent by post

Print Version SOLD OUT

Sample of features in this issue: Min-till drills, Firewood ideas, Grain trailer used as batch drier, Rat baiter and much more. Print Version

DIGITAL COPY ON CD ONLY

A toe-tip bucket provides greater reach, and saves trailer and truck sides from getting damaged....

This issue includes the most complex home built machine we have done - a self propelled large square bale, built on a combine chassis...

'The Art of Winching' is one of the most important articles in this issue, as there are few farmers who don't find themselves pulling loaded trailers

Issue 1 - 1 includes home made farm equipment which can save farmers time and money.