Ross Farm Machinery, Ltd

Ross Farm Machinery Ltd (RFM) are a privately owned agricultural dealership with three owner/directors actively involved in the business and who live within the area in which we trade. RFM was formed in 1991 by Russell Brett, Tony Dudfield and Andrew Stuffins. Prior to RFM all three directors worked in the agricultural machinery industry: Russell for JI Case, Tony for a local agricultural co-operative, Andrew for clutch manufacturer LuK (Hereford) Ltd and prior to that with the same local agricultural co-operative. During 1991, due to the area's Case-IH dealer giving up agricultural machinery, the opportunity came to form RFM to sell and service Case-IH, Kuhn and Manitou products. RFM quickly became one of the UK's largest Case-IH agri dealers with locations at Ross on Wye, Fosse Cross, Raglan, later expanding to include Martley. The demise of Matbro in 1998 brought about a change in Manitou's representation requirements which took the franchise away from our Fosse Cross depot. RFM decided to switch representation to Merlo company wide so as to maintain consistency of product across the group. Late in 2003 after 6 successful years with Merlo RFM were approached by JCB with an opportunity that we could not let pass. During 2005 the merger between Case-IH and NH was taking its toll on RFM and led to the most difficult decision in our relatively short history. RFM were approached by AGCO to sell Massey Ferguson and Fendt products at our Ross on Wye, Raglan and Martley depots (but not Fosse Cross). Although we had many successful years with Case-IH we decided reluctantly to bring about a seismic change to our business. Because we could clearly see that a brighter future for the company lay ahead with AGCO, we very reluctantly decided to sell our Fosse Cross business to facilitate the changeover. It was and is our belief that Massey Ferguson and Fendt products although owned by the same parent are totally different tractors, whereas the Case-IH and NH products were nearly identical. Since the change in tractor franchise from January 2006, we have become firmly established with MF and Fendt, enabling us to complete our wish to offer a product portfolio which is made up of the very best in quality agricultural products. Changing franchises is an extremely expensive thing to do, but we now have the perfect line up of principal suppliers in MF, JCB, Fendt, Kuhn, McHale and Simba Horsch. We cannot think of any further changes we would want to make in the future.