IS The Time Right For Machinery Rings?

IS The Time Right For Machinery Rings? MISCELLANEOUS EQUIPMENT Miscellaneous 19-1-33 High prices for new machinery have aroused interest among farm groups all over the world in machinery rings, a European concept that got started in the early 1960's. Rings use "organized contracting" to match up farmers within a certain geographic area - typically a 12 1/2 mile radius - with other farmers who have extra machinery capacity or have work that needs to be done. Rings help everyone involved. Farmers can use capital that might have been tied up in machinery for land purchases, for example. Likewise, farmers with the latest machinery get a little added return on their investment by contracting with ring members. Rings employ a full or part-time organizer, who works with a management board to coordinate the demand for work with the people who are going to supply the services. Requests for help, which can range from tillage to planting to harvesting, must be made at least three months in advance. The owner of the machine will do work for another farmer and when the work has been completed to a satisfactory standard, the ring organizer sends an account to the person who has had the service done. Payment is expected within 10 days. The organizer, who's hired on a full- or part-time basis depending on size of the ring (one in Holland has 1,000 members; one in West Germany, 300), takes a small percentage of the money he handles. This, along with ring membership fees, pays his salary, plus office, telephone and transportation expenses. Membership fees relate to the size of a member's business, either on an acreage basis or any other method which is agreed to by the members. The system has spread from Bavaria to Belgium, Denmark, France, Holland, Japan and Luxemburg. The number of functions the rings perform has grown, too. For ex-ample, a Holland ring provides a form of health insurance and allows farm operators to get away for a vacation. Usually rings have excess capacity to most of the work. And they can even pro-vide backup in case of a break-down that can't be repaired within a day. (From Farming Ahead).

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