Comment – The 2024 beet campaign and a serious thought

In the sunlit uplands, this year’s fodder beet campaign was over in sub three hours and delivered the required 9t into a makeshift clamp in the top yard.

Let me explain, with a local farmer (lets call him John), we split a load from a farmer (‘out east’) which get delivered to “Johns” yard, not ours, due to the entire parish infrastructure being designed in and for the 1820’s not the 2020’s. Our part in this is to load the beet into a trailer and ferry it back a couple of miles down said tortuous Dickensian superhighways. All good.

The fodder beet was delivered to “John’s” with a 2021 registered 250hp tractor and a very large modern trailer. The driver showed a picture of the laden weighbridge ticket, at a shade over 31t. For the record I reckon the trailer was 60% full, tops. The law states that the maximum weight of a laden tractor and trailer on the road is 31t.

This is where it gets interesting, that tractor and trailer was teetering on the edge of the legal maximum at 60% capacity. And it was a tandem axle trailer, not a triaxle, and whilst the tractor had a 50k box, it didn’t have a suspended rear axle (which is what the law requires to travel at any speed over 40k).

By my reckoning there is a significant proportion of the country’s tractor and trailer combinations, frantically harvesting silage, grain, potatoes, sugar beet etc.. which is routinely over weight, over speed and operating outside of the requirements of the law not to mention manufacturers design limits.

‘What is this to do with us?” I hear the nations tractor salesmen shout at me, well, remember that phrase ‘duty of care’? Did you sell the accused a trailer and tractor with a gross train weight capacity of c 45t? Did you know how it was going to be used, did you inform the customer of their legal duties? A difficult conversation that one.

At LAMMA I was on the discussion panel regarding trailer safety alongside a user, a trailer axle manufacturer and an agricultural road safety and training expert, which was fascinating and frightening in equal measures. It’s fair to say there was plenty of spirited and sensible discussion and we ran out of time. What emerged was the full range of knowledge (or lack of it) from users regarding what is required of them in terms of training and competence to safely use tractors and trailers on the road.

I am concerned that as a supply chain, we happily supply machinery to end users and in some cases don’t necessarily engage with, or get involved with the customers needs and requirements, beyond selling them what they want. Whilst  I’m not sure I have the answers to this, it’s worth the conversation.

And that is before we even start on trailer testing and brakes.

Please accept my apologies for the serious tone of this weeks comment, back to pictures of cats and custard next weekend.

Have a good week.

Andy

PS this guidance is worth a read regarding the requirements for agricultural trailers on the road https://www.nfuonline.com/updates-and-information/trailer-buying-guide/#:~:text=The%20maximum%20weight%20of%20a,that%20they%20can%20carry%20more.

Likewise the  AEA’s excellent Look behind you guide.

PPS – as the picture shows, no such issues in the hills.