For this month’s edition of Irish Tractor & Agri, we profile Tyrone-based Crawford Agri Contracting. On the go for 50 years, director Ross Crawford reveals the secret ingredients of their winning formula.
When it comes to agricultural contracting in Tyrone, look no further than Crawford Agri Contracting of Castlederg. The Crawford name is synonymous with reliability and quality of work – the two key characteristics of any successful contracting business.
Crawford Agri Contracting was established by the late Stanley Crawford 50 years ago and his son Ross joined the family business twenty years later. With their collective experience, the father and son duo are renowned for reliability when it comes to providing a complete service from plough to harvest.
Specialising in all areas of agricultural contracting, they pride themselves on offering a professional and reliable service with modern equipment.
Competitive prices are available to farmers and landowners on their extensive range of contracting solutions including silage cutting, round baling, ploughing, slurrying, manure spreading, grass stitching and hedge cutting.
Proof of the pudding is in the eating as the saying goes and they boast a long list of satisfied customers who continue to avail of their services year after year.
“I grew up in contracting,” Ross outlined to Irish Tractor & Agri magazine, “and I enjoy it which is important because it’s definitely tough work, especially when the weather is against you. It would be a difficult job to have to do if you didn’t enjoy it.
“You have to do your best but the unpredictability of the weather is one of the most challenging parts of this business.”
Down through the years, Stanley and Ross have built up a professional and dedicated team of staff.
Their devoted team have provided their customers with a sincere and efficient service for many years and using the latest machinery and equipment, they provide a professional service within a 25 mile radius of their Castlederg base.
They appreciate the fact that their customers have very demanding work schedules and that working with weather cycles can be difficult.
Therefore, when you call Crawford Agri Contractors they get to work immediately scheduling specific machines with experienced operators and delivering them on time. Put simply, you can depend on them to meet those all-important harvest deadlines.
“Our strength is that we always show up and get the job done on time,” explained Ross whose wife Doris runs a family owned Mace convenience store in Castlederg. “We pride ourselves on the fact that if we say we’ll be there on such a day we’ll be there and the job will be done as best as possible.
“We work within a 25 mile radius of Castlederg and we are lucky to have so many loyal customers who have been with us for many years. They are happy with the service we provide which is why they stick with us. That in itself is a ringing endorsement of what we do.”
To help them maintain their high standards and always achieve the best results for their clients, they look after their own fleet maintenance, repairs and servicing where possible. Such an approach helps ensure all their machinery maintains a high work rate and superior forage qualities.
Ross is pleased with the direction that the business has taken in the last few years and he acknowledges the fact that it is essential to try to improve on the service in order to keep the customers happy.
“We were very happy with how 2014 went business wise. It was a good year for us because the weather was very favourable which was, of course, was a big help. That’s always a helped when it comes to silage production. In general, the silage was of a very high quality.
“Hopefully, we can look forward to more good weather this year because it makes life a whole lot easier in our line of work.”
Looking to the future the plan is to keep the shoulder to the wheel and hope that in turn will help them to pick up new customers along the way.
“We’d like to continue the way we are into the future. As I said we were busy in 2014 so we’ll be hoping for more of the same. And you’re always looking to attract new customers every year. Keeping the machinery freshened up is the way forward.”
A proud family run business, consistently providing first class agricultural services to ensure their customers is the cornerstone of Stanley and Ross’s family business. This approach has stood them in goodstead in the past so why change a winning formula?
Give Ross a call at the numbers below to find out more.
Crawford Agri Contracting
134 Strabane Road,
Castlederg,
County Tyrone,
Northern Ireland,
BT81 7JD
Tel: 028 81671555
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 3 No 3, April 2015
