A group of AF Members in the Borders Machinery Ring (BMR) enjoyed a day at AF HQ and on local Members’ farms to learn more about what AF does and how we can work closer together.
This year has been declared by the UN as the International Year of Co-operatives. So, we were delighted to get a request from a co-operative over the border in Scotland to visit AF.
It was 3 am when the group set off from various fields of Scotland to head far to the south. By 11 am in they were in the heart of AF HQ in Norfolk ready to start talking business.
Their mission, as BMR Chair Graham Lofthouse explained, is simple. They are developing their strategy for growth and although they already procure an increasing quantity and range of products through their membership of AF, they want to see how they can benefit from deeper collaboration and learn from how AF does business for our Members.
BMR was the first machinery ring in the UK. The first such ring in the world was in Germany, and they are especially popular in the US. Back in 1987 in the Borders 23 local farmers and contractors joined together to improve efficiency and cut costs.
Now BMR is looking to expand. They want to understand from AF how to bring even more benefits to their existing members of their co-operative, and how best to attract new members. They have the support of the Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society Ltd (SAOS).
By category, AF specialists explained our offer – on fuels, energy and utilities, livestock and crop inputs, construction materials and more. For connecting with Members and others, we explained our methods in print, by email and through AF Online and myAF as well as social media marketing through Facebook and Instagram.
Questions came thick and fast. How to connect with younger audiences? Which methods of communications work best?
On electricity procurement, they asked whether AF does power purchase agreements? Yes. And were amazed we handle a portfolio of such size. They were given food for thought with our perspective on the mandatory half hour settlement soon to come for electricity sites. They were impressed that AF has bought electricity for ’25-6 for significantly less than the rates of 2024.
The minds of the BMR group were buzzing with all that they had seen but, on their way to catch their flight north, we had more to share.
AF Member James Bucher welcomed them to his farm. The group reported feeling “inspired how he has turned his farm from a conventional rotation of vegetables and cereals to a less intensive and more regenerative system growing bi-crops of beans and oats for Wildfarmed, cover cropping and agroforestry while overcoming the challenges of yield loss and pest pressures.”
Their final stop was AF Member Euston Estate where Oliver Tyrell took them on a whirlwind tour of the farming and non-farming (energy generation) elements of that business.
Michael Bayne, BMR Manager, summed up the success of the visit as “getting a real insight into the structure and culture of AF” and knowing how BMR “could be increasing the business we do with you.”
BMR Chair Graham Lofthouse was “full of admiration for the team of great people at AF, the strength and consistency of your brand”. He feels co-operatives need to be more proactive in all sorts of ways – in the supply chain, reaching out to new Members and sharing more of the benefits of buying better, together. We couldn’t agree more.
If you are part of a group that would like to visit AF HQ, let us know.
