The Chambers family have been involved in agricultural contracting for three generations and their name is synonymous with reliability when it comes to providing a complete service from plough to harvest.
Specialising in all areas of agricultural contracting, Chambers Agri-Contracts Ltd, which is owned and managed by Richard Chambers with the assistance of his two sons Ivan and Gary, pride themselves on offering a professional and reliable service with modern equipment.
On the go for 100 odd years and working out of the business premises in Latton, Co. Monaghan, the family-run business covers counties Cavan, Monaghan, Louth, Meath and north county Dublin and currently have eight full-time employees on their payroll. “My grandfather started out in this business with a horse threshing machine and my father, continued the family tradition with his own agricultural contracting business”.
“I’ve been contracting all my life,” explained Richard who initially operated as a sole trader with the assistance of his wife Rosemary who looked after the administration and bookkeeping end of things. In recent years the sole trader business has been incorporated into the company, Chambers Agri-Contracts Ltd.
Chambers Agri- Contracts Ltd offer an extensive range of contracting solutions to farmers and landowners including silage cutting, ploughing, crop growing and management together with harvesting. Lime spreading, timber and tree cutting are other strings to their bow and they boast a long list of satisfied customers (Roadstone and the ESB to name just two) who continue to avail of their services year after year.
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 Chambers Agri-Contracts Ltd 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.
“It’s all to do with when a customer rings up you don’t put it on the long finger,” Richard remarked.
“You have to be on the ball in this game. We work 24/7, if there’s rain on the way, we work during the night to get the job done. “You have to be true to your word. If you say you’ll do something tomorrow, you don’t turn up a day or two later. Reliability is very important in this game.” The importance of experience can’t be underestimated either:“Experience is vital and we have experienced operators working for us”.
“This is a competitive business and you have to do a good job, customers appreciate that. We have high output machines and the job is always done on time.” As a result, business has been brisk of late for Chambers Agri-Contracts Ltd. “We’re very busy at the moment. We bought two new combines last year and we recently started the winter barley.”
That’s not to say that everything is plane sailing Richard remarked. There are obstacles in this line of work that have to be overcome and the price of fuel is a major bone of contention. “The price of machinery and parts is a challenge but the main thing is fuel. The low sulphur fuel we’ve been getting the last couple of years runs through the tractors and the combines. “For instance, before, a fill of a tank would last a day and a half and that’s 12 hour days. Nowadays you won’t get a day out of it, you’d be filling it up again at 7pm in the evening”.
“Fuel price brings a massive challenge when it comes to pricing. We’re not the cheapest but we’re not the dearest either. Fuel costs are the major cause of price increases and it’s difficult.”
You get what you pay for and, in that respect, you won’t hear any complaints about Chambers Agri-Contracts Ltd’s work.
Richard Chambers
Chambers Agri-Contracts Ltd
Drumod
Latton
Castleblayney
Co. Monaghan
Tel: (042) 9669187
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 2 No 4, September 2014
