Agri lender supporting farmers in an unpredictable world

As a farmer, you never quite know what the day will bring. You can start off with a whole list of things to do – and then Mother Nature suddenly takes you in a completely different direction.

The unexpected turns up all over the farm. Those pregnant heifers you’re waiting on give birth to their schedule, not yours.

Your plans for a full day’s harvesting are scuppered instantly by a sudden thunderstorm.

You can’t tend to the pigs yet because your sheep have broken through a hedge and are heading towards the road.

Sometimes the only predictable thing about farm life is that it’s so unpredictable.

And that’s just the day to day. Other factors can make your farm’s finances a bit of a lottery too.

Interest rates, farm gate prices, rising utility bills, fertiliser costs – all can go up or down in an instant.

This makes everyday farming challenging enough but what if you want extra money to grow your business, or open up a new revenue stream?

First-hand knowledge

“Farming is an uncertain business, which can make it hard for even the most committed and hardworking farmers to invest in their future,” says Ben Wood, head of sales at independent agri-lender Rural Asset Finance.

“What they need is a bit of financial certainty and support from a lender with first-hand knowledge of what running a farm is really like, who knows what they’re going through and that agricultural life is never straightforward.”

Lender Rural Asset Finance was set up specifically to support British farming businesses – which is why its team members have all either run or worked on farms.

“We know that every single farm is different, that every day is different,” says Ben, “so we get to know the customer and find out how the business works not just on paper, but in real life.

“It means we can offer them a finance package that suits the ebbs and flows of their individual business.”

Alternative to banks

Making that work is, however, quite a wish list.

It means borrowing the money you need for any size of project, from buying a tractor to purchasing the farm next door, at a fixed monthly cost you can afford, worked out to take into account exactly how your farm operates on a day-to-day basis.

This is while keeping your capital safe to deal with those day-to-day costs and unexpected calamities.

It would also be handy to have the deal approved and the cash in your bank as quickly as possible – yet RAF says its farm expertise and in-house legal and management team tick all of these boxes.

“As a non-bank lender we can be flexible,” says Ben. “We can tailor a product to your precise circumstances, organising, facilitating and structuring the most suitable business loans in tandem with equipment financing facilities for each individual customer.”

It’s an attractive alternative to banks, whose rigid lending requirements mean that when it comes to farmers, often the “computer says no”.

Rural Asset Finance’s innovative type of finance, in contrast, has already opened up huge possibilities for its customers, the company says.

It’s bought everything from vehicles (tractors, combines, balers, chasers, lorries) to machinery (milking machines, fermenters, crushers) to buildings including cattle sheds, chicken sheds and grain stores.

But it’s also helped farmers move on from simply producing food to building an entire farm-to-fork process, providing funding for milking machines bottling plants, packaging plants and entire dairies.

Bigger dreams

But even that’s not all. “Some of our biggest successes have been in helping farmers to achieve those bigger dreams that they might previously have written off as impossible,” says Ben.

“They came to us with an idea and we’ve funded farm shops, glamping, holiday accommodation, fishing lakes, vineyards, micro-breweries and an equestrian centre.

“Many farmers have wanted to generate income from renewable energy – and we’ve provided solar panels, biogas plants, ground source heating and wind power technology to help them cut their energy bills and make money by selling the surplus to the national grid.”

And one of the key aspects for RAF’s customers is that reliability.

“If you own assets already we can use them as security, which protects any rainy-day money you might have. And our fixed-term, fixed rate finance means you always know exactly how much you’ll be paying each month.”

Most of all, says Ben, Rural Asset Finance is a reliable source of support. “We follow our customers’ vision, we build friendly, face-to-face trusting relationships.

“Farming’s a tough job and farmers need to seek out lenders who are truly on their side – offering certainty in this uncertain world.”

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