TICKING TIMEBOMB: YOU can bet that dealer principals, particularly in the ag machinery sector, are not planning to remove millions in dividends from their business to fund a new super-yacht, pay off their father’s mortgage or any other seemingly dodgy practice that gives capitalism a bad name as is in the sorry BHS saga this week.  No, they are mostly trying to pay staff, suppliers and overheads in order to keep afloat.  Farmers are being hit with cashflow problems caused by delayed subsidy payments, poor weather and plummeting commodity prices.  This inevitably is causing a knock-on effect for all businesses in the agri-sector who rely on the ‘farming pound’. The bottom has been knocked out of the used tractor and machinery trade which limits the ability of dealers to trade profitably.  Word is that some tractor manufacturers are quietly having to support dealers financially to keep them going.  We haven’t reached a point yet where manufacturers buy dealerships as happened with CLAAS a few years, but that cannot be ruled out.  Uncertainly caused by the EU referendum is ‘skewing’ the farm market at the moment. That may ease slightly after 23 June, but who knows?  Although there have been some ‘’coming-together’ of  dealers in recent years, the number of dealer branches has remained fairly constant.  As remote service support expands, we could see a reduction in ‘bricks and mortar’ and an increase in ‘flying technicians’ operating from home (it’s already happening).

BRRRR.  What a week for weather. Cricket matches played in the snow, roads closed by snowdrifts across parts of north of England and Scotland (today) the day before May Bank Holiday. The purr of mowers has been a rare sound this week, and with temperatures hovering sub-10C, we have been way off the magic 15C at which grass will start growing.  But we shouldn’t be surprised.  This week in 1981, blizzards swept across the whole of the country. Only one road is Gloucestershire was open, that a single lane of the M4. Cars were abandoned in snowdrifts up to 6ft high.  Contrast that with last year, when the temperature went above 25C in mid-April.   But as the quote goes “Everyone talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it”.

. .  OR IT COULD BE WORSE. Spare a thought for the golf greenkeepers (sorry, superintendents) in and around Houston, Texas who had to mop up after 11 inches of rain fell in just six hours last week.  Many areas had their average season’s rainfall in one night.  It has been estimated that in one day, 240 billion gallons were dumped into the Houston area. That’s as much water as flows over Niagara Falls in 88 hours!