[HN Gopher] Wild bidding wars erupt at used-tractor auctions acr... ___________________________________________________________________ Wild bidding wars erupt at used-tractor auctions across the U.S. Author : SQL2219 Score : 117 points Date : 2021-11-14 14:17 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com) | mrfusion wrote: | We need an open source tractor. Who's with me! | | It doesn't even have to be great. Just minimum viable product and | let iterations improve it. | | Maybe a billionaire would fund kicking this off? | JohnJamesRambo wrote: | The old ones are about as open source as you can get haha. | | I can see everything on my Mom and Dad's old Massey Ferguson | tractors and every single part is available online from a | plethora of vendors since there really aren't that many parts. | rascul wrote: | There was one on HN about a month ago. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28827785 | carbocation wrote: | Check out https://opensourceecology.dozuki.com/c/LifeTrac | markvdb wrote: | Have a look at the plans for USSR tractors. Those were fairly | well-documented. An acquaintance of mine working at a kolchoz - | a USSR collective farm - told me whenever new rolling equipment | came in, they usually took it apart and rebuilt it from | scratch. | | The Belarus (MTZ) tractor factory [0] still produces a popular | super maintainable model that hasn't changed much since the | 1970's. | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus_(tractor) | rzzzt wrote: | Would three wheels be enough? | dzdt wrote: | There are two kinds of optimum strategies for farmers, and there | has been a long term shift from one to the other. | | The older strategy is for a farm to be no bigger than a single | family can handle, and to be as self-sufficient as possible. Here | equipment is run as close to breaking down as it can be without | actually being broken down. A tractor would be used <30 days a | year (planting, fertilizing, weeding, harvest) and sit idle | otherwise. It doesn't make sense to pay for a super-expensive | machine to sit idle. The optimum is lowest cost to purchase, | lowest cost to repair, cheapest option that can get the job done. | A farmer builds a collection of nearly-broken down machines over | years to have backup options if one isn't working when needed. | | The other optimum is to have the largest, most effective, most | efficient machines and use them enough to justify it. This makes | sense at the industrial farming scale or as a contracting | business where the equipment is owned by someone who does | contract jobs for many smaller farmers. For this case the tractor | needs to be running and making money as many days a year as it | can; any down time is money lost. | | The shift over years has been that the second strategy produces | more crops with lower expenses than the first, and is taking over | to the extent it is almost impossible to run a small farm without | going bankrupt. | mschuster91 wrote: | > The shift over years has been that the second strategy | produces more crops with lower expenses than the first, and is | taking over to the extent it is almost impossible to run a | small farm without going bankrupt. | | There is value in small-scale farming. If there is one thing | urban hipsters love to pay for, it's artisanal, high quality | organic food. There are farms where you can see pictures and | datasheets of all the animals living there and you can pre- | order certain cuts of the specific animal once it is | slaughtered and processed. | yalogin wrote: | In the US, isn't this the case for a long time now? I thought | the consolidation towards bigger and bigger farms is the trend | for a few decades now. | mistrial9 wrote: | yes, quite a bit of consolidation after the 1980s in the | farming sector. culture reference: Farm Aid | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_Aid | theptip wrote: | > The shift over years has been that the second strategy | produces more crops with lower expenses | | I read an interesting book recently (Seeing like a State) that | makes the claim that large-scale monocrop industrial farming is | only actually "optimal" if you don't price in the heavy | subsidy, and if you ignore the non-revenue contributions of | small-hold agriculture (e.g. the land might provide fuel, | crafting materials, and otherwise support the farmers in a way | that doesn't show up on the balance sheet). Not to mention that | the larger farms tend to be extractive, in that they are using | up water from the water table and nutrients from the soil, and | so they will eventually degrade the land to the point where it | cannot be productive any more. | | I did some digging and the farm subsidies in the US are truly | eye-watering, and particularly notable is that the biggest 10% | of farms take 90% of the subsidy, so we are not even | subsidizing "traditional working farmers" or anything like | that, just shipping hundreds of billions to huge ag corps. | | I wouldn't claim to be an expert nor to be certain about those | economic claims though, and would be interested in others' | thoughts here, particularly other books you found useful on the | subject. | toyg wrote: | _> particularly notable is that the biggest 10% of farms take | 90% of the subsidy_ | | This is the real problem. | | I wish somebody would come up with a simple mechanism to stop | all subsidies to companies over a certain size. Yes, it will | be gamed, but it's still better than the outright crony- | capitalism we have today. | tastyfreeze wrote: | Just stop subsidies altogether. Subsidies distort the | market and encourage farmers to grow crops the market | doesnt actually want. | willvarfar wrote: | Subsidies can be about ensuring crops are produced in- | country instead of imported from cheaper countries. This | is not the same as saying there is no market for the | produce. | simonh wrote: | Who cares where it's produced? If farmers in a developing | country can get off aid and earn a living, good for them. | I do care how it's produced. | azinman2 wrote: | So many reasons why this is bad, but the most obvious | reason right now is the supply chain crisis. It's one | thing if you can't get a new car. It's another if you | can't get new food. | AussieWog93 wrote: | Relying on imports for food makes your country a sitting | duck in times of war. All the enemy needs to do is | blockade you and then you can be starved into submission. | PeterisP wrote: | There are two main aspects. | | One is long-term food security - even if global trade is | mostly fine right now despite the current hiccups, | there's no telling how it's going to be in a decade or | two, and it's hard to ramp up production (due to lack of | skillset, machinery and infrastructure) if you suddenly | need it; so it makes all sense to pay some fraction of a | percent of your GDP to ensure long-term strategic | security of your food supply, especially if it looks like | global tensions will eventually rise due to climate | change. | | The second aspect is that even in the current | circumstances we're seeing rapid urbanization and | depopulation of the countryside, which is generally seen | as a problem for many areas. In a "natural" regime | without rural subsidies this would happen even faster. | treeman79 wrote: | Tariffs are an option | cgio wrote: | If the demand is unelastic, stopping subsidies or | introducing tariffs will increase prices ending up with | the consumer and most probably hitting the poorest people | worse. From that perspective, billions shopped to mega | corps could be an ironically capitalist way to socialist | means. Better ways perhaps to achieve the same but don't | know if they would align with a capitalist worldview, | e.g. socialise the production, or cap profitability etc. | BoorishBears wrote: | We already provide food assistance to our poorest, we | could always redirect those subsidies directly to poor | families | etempleton wrote: | The problem is that the whole farming industry is proped | up on subsidies and if you ended it tomorrow almost every | small to medium farm would fold and get bought by a large | farm or sold to build a housing development. | AnthonyMouse wrote: | That isn't consistent with 10% of the farms taking 90% of | the subsidy. | | The subsidy argument is a scam anyway. It's a commodity | market. The margins will be razor thin, the end. If you | subsidize production, prices go down. It will eat the | whole subsidy and leave the margins razor thin. | | The only way the subsidy helps you is if you get more of | it than your competitors. Now who do you think that | applies to, the family farm or the huge corporation with | lots of lobbyists? | ars wrote: | If 10% of them grow 90% of the food then it's completely | consistent. | | Your misunderstanding is that a subsidy is not aimed at | one US farm versus another, it's US farms versus foreign | farms. | | The reason should be pretty obvious, without the | subsidies they would be no US farms. And then in time of | war there would be trouble. | | There are a huge number of US industries that exist only | to make sure that US capacity will remain even in time of | war. | | The same goal could be accomplished with tariffs, but | then the price of food would be higher. | AnthonyMouse wrote: | > If 10% of them grow 90% of the food then it's | completely consistent. | | The claim implied that the small farms get _more_ of the | subsidy, i.e. that they would be the ones wiped out | without it. | | > The reason should be pretty obvious, without the | subsidies they would be no US farms. | | Why would there be no US farms? Real estate in San | Francisco is much more expensive than it is in Mexico | City or the like, but farmland in Oklahoma is not | uncompetitive with farmland outside of the US. | | If this was the real reason then the subsidies wouldn't | be suspiciously concentrated at the location of Iowa | caucuses. | klyrs wrote: | Lower food prices are good for the consumer. Exclusively | focusing on the supply side is a mistake. | AnthonyMouse wrote: | The consumer is the one paying the taxes that fund the | subsidies. That isn't helping them. | theptip wrote: | I get the general point you're making, but in a | progressive tax regime like the US, the poor (who benefit | most from lower food prices) are paying proportionately | less of their income as tax than the rich, so this is | helping them. Many US families paid no tax in 2020 due to | tax credits, so they won't pay for the subsidies. | | I would definitely argue that there are simpler ways of | helping low-income families to afford food though, if | that is your goal... just lower their taxes further, or | give them negative tax / UBI if they are already paying | no taxes, rather than adding lots of complex gears to | distort the economy to try and affect the same outcome. | Or more food stamps if you don't like the idea of poor | people spending their tax rebate dollars on non-food | items that they prefer. | AnthonyMouse wrote: | > I get the general point you're making, but in a | progressive tax regime like the US, the poor (who benefit | most from lower food prices) are paying proportionately | less of their income as tax than the rich, so this is | helping them. | | That's assuming that you would lower taxes uniformly | instead of e.g. lowering them for the lowest tax bracket, | which is in no way required. | hn_version_0023 wrote: | I'd say that this is _a_ real problem, but there's a larger | issue: _lying_ -- which includes not just outright | falsehoods, but _the spin applied to facts to make them | more widely palatable_. | | When I look into nearly anything I find some distortion of | the truth in service of profits. | | The problem is that we're entirely comfortable with lying, | and have done so much of it the truth of everything is | obscured by the spin. This I feel is at the heart of what | ails the USA and the world. | | As a European friend told me once over beers: _"All you | Americans are always selling something, and doing it badly, | by lying until you get the sale"_ | jml7c5 wrote: | >particularly notable is that the biggest 10% of farms take | 90% of the subsidy | | How much crop production do the biggest 10% of farms | represent? | theptip wrote: | It's a good question, and I don't have the answer. Here's a | reasonable jumping-off point that I've started | investigating: https://www.cato.org/commentary/examining- | americas-farm-subs... | | And here's a more detailed NBER paper digging into | distribution of subsidies: | https://www.nber.org/papers/w16693 | | My general impression so far is that the subsidies are not | being disbursed pro-rata to production rates, and larger | farms (having more legal resources) are much more able to | capture these subsidies; for example with exotic ownership | structures of lots of subsidiaries, to maximize the capture | of subsidies. These financial/legal engineering strategies | simply aren't available to smallholders. It's the same sort | of incentive structure that produces outcomes like the | biggest companies paying the lowest tax rates. | | Also, correction, I believe I have mis-quoted the stats off | the top of my head -- the Cato article suggests it's more | like 80% of subsidies to the top 10%. The general point | still stands. | SilasX wrote: | >It's a good question, and I don't have the answer. | | It's really the kind of thing you want to resolve | _before_ spreading a statistic like that. | shalmanese wrote: | > I did some digging and the farm subsidies in the US are | truly eye-watering, and particularly notable is that the | biggest 10% of farms take 90% of the subsidy | | Well, yeah. The 90th percentile farm makes $7665 in farm | income per year [1] so how much subsidies could they possibly | absorb? | | "Farms" in the US are overwhelmingly used as a tax avoidance | strategy. Only a numerical minority of farms are actually | designed to grow food. | | [1] https://aei.ag/2019/02/25/what-is-median-farm-income/ | akudha wrote: | Isn't this generally true in other industries too? Small cafes | can't compete with Starbucks, there are no mom and pop | pharmacies, small grocery stores can't compete with huge/ugly | chains... | | At this rate, the entire planet will be ruled by a few dozen | mega corporations. This sucks, but I don't know what can be | done to mitigate the situation. | Beaver117 wrote: | Well, shoplifting and other petty theft has been increasing | otikik wrote: | > I don't know what can be done to mitigate the situation. | | Something about the means of production, perhaps. | chillingeffect wrote: | (Most of) us don't have to work for them and (most of) us | don't have to buy from them. If we mindfully shop looking at | the big picture, we can support smaller operations. | akudha wrote: | When I lived in NY (upper east side) there were multiple | pharmacies within walking distance. Nearly every corner had | Starbucks (I used to give directions using Starbucks - not | making this up). | | Number of small cafes or pharmacies within walking | distance? Big fat zero. This situation will happen first in | big cities, then proceed to smaller areas too (as long as | there is profit). | | I was looking for an apartment. Guess what? Multiple | buildings in the area I looked at, owned by the same | company. | | Consolidation is not new. But the scale at which it is | happening is, and it is terrifying. | | Just 4 companies control 80% of American meat supply, for | example. | [deleted] | im3w1l wrote: | Why can't the family farmers share a pool of highly efficient | tractors? | AlotOfReading wrote: | Excepting unusual conditions, most nearby farmers needing the | same equipment will need it at similar times. You can get | around this by transporting machinery long distances as | migrant workers do to hit multiple harvests in various parts | of the country, but that gets expensive. | im3w1l wrote: | Well big ag was supposedly able to solve it right? Vertical | integration helps coordinate I suppose, but I don't see how | it should be impossible without. | foepys wrote: | In Germany you can rent equipment and operators for this | equipment. A lot of farmers do it for crops they don't | usually harvest but are required to to keep the land fertile | or to collect subsidies. | | The problem with this model is that, as the sibling comment | already pointed out, harvest is done typically within one or | two weeks or even in two days, depending on the weather. | Harvesting too late can make the crop go bad. So renting the | equipment and getting it to the field can be a hassle. It's | still being done a lot but it's not risk free. | sjwalter wrote: | This situation has interesting second-order effects as | well. Most "custom harvesters" require farmers to schedule | their combine/truck well ahead of time, giving them little | leeway in which specific dates they can harvest their crop. | So instead of for instance letting the corn dry out in the | sun, they'll spray an assload of glyphosate on it to cause | it to dessicate to ensure it'll be at the right moisture | level right when their custom harvester shows up. | nanomonkey wrote: | There is a third option, often called "Market Gardener", where | a tractor is not used because it is a waste of space and | resources. Tractors require a lot of extra turn around space, | and area for the wheels to travel that can be utilized for | planting. Instead rows are built at 3 ft wide and perhaps 60 ft | long to utilize human scale planting and weeding techniques. In | this case the soil is not tilled, but instead allowed to build | up. Covers are used to suppress weeds when the row is not in | use. Rows are more easily rotated with cover crops or nitrogen | fixating plants to improve the soil nutrients. These are of | course smaller family farms 1-10 acres. | structural wrote: | This is absolutely true. A related trend is that many family- | owned farms are no longer operated by the family: they own the | land and lease the farming rights to an industrial-scale | operation. The difference in efficiency means that the large | operator can pay almost as much for the lease as the individual | farming family would realize in profit if they worked the land | themselves and still have a viable business. | [deleted] | foxhop wrote: | It's not impossible, you are thinking from the wrong paradigm. | The industry is already shifting if you pay attention to the | proper news sources. The chemical agriculture war on pests and | nature is coming to an end. These chemicals are making us sick, | these monoculture are collapsing the ecosystem globally. | | The good news is nature abhors a vacuum and will heal if we let | it. The wu Wei. Small farms will rise, food is just too | important for the economy and with rapid inflation there is no | way around it. We are all going to have to become farmers or | know our farmers. | | Ref: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UC1eySW_9TiI5wnvTnIIw2Nw | h2odragon wrote: | Well observed. My experiences include a lot of farms that | operated with big yards of scrap iron; were always repairing / | rebuilding something, and did contract construction work to | keep the machines running when they weren't using them for | their own concerns. | | There's very few operations running that way anymore, the "odd | construction contract" market for them dried up before and | faster than the farming side of those operations. USDA Soil | Conservation flood control projects used to be a large source | of work there. | cmroanirgo wrote: | I live on my family farm. We have a 50yr old tractor and your | basic premise seems correct. All of my neighbors follow the | same route. | | I would add that small farmers are typically _not_ mono | culture. We used to have various fruit varieties. One neighbor | is mixed veggies, another cattle and flowers. | | Our farm has been forced out of fruit because of corporate mono | farms who inevitably cause gluts in the market due to over | supply. In my local experience, corporate farms are typically | 5-10 bigger as a _minimum_ than their surrounding neighbors. | | When a small farmer loses _any_ percentage income, he must | quickly change income stream. Hence, our fruit trees are gone, | and we 're now raising sheep, and are forced to be double | income. Our tractor & other super reliable (but very clunky) | machines remain. | oopsyDoodl wrote: | I think it's great. | | It's the story of humanity moving on from "I am my own | industrial island" to inclusive effort at scale to automate | away and normalize often dangerous logistical work (I am 41 | and have limbless, digit less peers who had to work on family | farms as teens.) | | Family farms are, to me, simply a legacy social and technical | effort. | | The problem is old politics refusing to take reality | seriously. Americans who carry on about their legacy of | revolution, moving history forward, disruption!, exporting | that mentality to the world, are all sad their lives are | disrupted by others wanting the same agency. | | Moral relativism worked for Americans while we bombed the | world, impeding other nations progress, but they caught up | anyway. | | "There's a warning sign on the road ahead; a lot of people | saying we'd be better off dead. Don't feel like Satan; but I | am to them; so I try and forget it any way I can." | | If you didn't sign a contract to be a family farmer for life, | oh well. America. | bunabhucan wrote: | https://archive.ph/8ZKDl | SQL2219 wrote: | Coupled with right to repair issues, farmers are really in a bad | spot. | ren_engineer wrote: | problem is that many of the corporate farms are owned by hedge | funds who are also invested in BigAg companies, so they don't | really care about right to repair. Hedge funds are also jacking | up land prices because they have access to near zero interest | loans for land | shmageggy wrote: | Got any links where we can read about this? Shit like this is | the root of all evil | noefingway wrote: | https://thecounter.org/who-really-owns-american-farmland | https://www.motherjones.com/food/2021/05/bill-melinda- | gates-... | | where I farm our (60 miles from DC and Baltimore) not very | productive red clay is going for top dollar and not to | farmers. Not necessarily hedge funds, but high income | earners buying up property for investment. | etempleton wrote: | I am familiar with this area and soil type and I am | always shocked farming is viable at all. Most grass | doesn't even seem to grow well unless you put a heavy | layer of topsoil down. | loonster wrote: | Sounds very similar to McDonald's Ice Cream machines. | toomuchtodo wrote: | Farmers need a coop that designs and builds farm equipment to | avoid legacy manufacturer rent seeking. | | Edit: open source hardware design and fabrication should be a | part of 4-H programs, lots of overlap with maker/hacker spaces | imho | tomc1985 wrote: | Would it be possible to source designs from expired patents? | toomuchtodo wrote: | Can't see why not. I'd also imagine patenting new | technology and allowing open access would also be possible. | myself248 wrote: | I got tapped by 4H to judge a computers/electronics design | event a few years ago. My background is in hackerspaces and | OSHW, and the overlap with what the kids were building was | staggering. | | It's been a while and I'm curious what they're up to lately. | daniel-cussen wrote: | Buy tractors from Belarus. They are nearly completely analog. | What few plastic parts there are haven't been minimized. And | if it's anything like it used to be in the Soviet Union, you | get instructions on how to make the replacement parts | yourself in the manual. | wwweston wrote: | Where can I learn more about the soviet culture around | industrial equipment that you're describing? | daniel-cussen wrote: | I talked to people who emigrated to Cuba for around a | decade. And it's not comfortable equipment, like it's | lacking all kinds of "features" that American equipment | has, and that are actually nice, but that never got | incorporated into the design. So I'm reading up about it | but remote controls were never a big thing, it was not | like in America where they were an obvious part of the | television, in the Bloc you had to manipulate the knobs | mounted on the device, and that meant getting up every | time. It was all about the basic bottom line | functionality. | | So I hear that in Cuba the Soviet air conditioning is | basic and brutal, for better and for worse. Apparently | most Soviet electronics sacrifice efficiency (energy | efficiency, and light weight, and economizing materials) | for effectiveness. There is a reason for this: under | Socialism, capital goods were always short, but they had | to be available. Demanding an air conditioning was | basically done as a political favor, and the economics | weren't good. Therefore what the factory wanted, really | really wanted, was for the customer to take his air | conditioning or tractor and never come back. No planned | obsolescence, repeat customers were the bane of their | existence. So they made them last. | pessimizer wrote: | I'm pretty sure 4-H relies on corporate sponsors. | throwawaymanbot wrote: | If ever there was a rebuttal of a business model... share holders | should pay attention. | h2odragon wrote: | Old iron is better built, less "electronic", and far easier to | understand the designs and fabricate parts yourself. As well as | cheaper to purchase. | | Folks I worked with in the 80s were using Michigan dirt moving | equipment from the 60s [1], and a quick look shows there's still | similar machines being traded [2]. | | The market for tractors is far bigger than specialized | construction equipment, but all the same factors apply. The | bigger units, say 75HP and up, counted as "construction | equipment" for us, certainly. Today's farms are bigger and | today's farmers have little need for smaller machines. | | [1] https://www.constructionequipment.com/michigan-elevating- | scr... | | [2] https://www.machinerytrader.com/listings/for- | sale/michigan/s... | jasode wrote: | _> Old iron is better built, less "electronic", and far easier | to understand the designs and fabricate parts yourself. As well | as cheaper to purchase._ | | I thought that big farms take advantage of newer tech on | tractors using GPS RTK for sub-inch accuracy and increased | productivity? Therefore, depending on the workload, the | decades-old "cheaper" tractor can turn out to be more costly | because the farm's yield isn't keeping up with competitors. It | seems like a tradeoff between old & new. | julianlam wrote: | I believe the argument is that these new tractors are not | repairable by yourself, leading to expensive repair and / or | replacement cost | jaclaz wrote: | At least on construction equipment (agricolture may be | different) the point is not only about costs (and | frequence) of repairs, but rather on machinery down time or | production loss. | | I have managed in the past some high production sites (road | tunnels) with a specific sequence of operations and having | a jumbo or a wheel loader or an excavator down meant severe | delays not only in excavation, but on all the following | works (concrete pouring, impermeabilization) and on all the | "ancillary" works (ventilation, electric cabins moving, | etc.). | | One of the machine at the excavation front broken for more | than a few hours would have meant literally days of delays, | complex scheduling modifications, etc., a total mess. | jasode wrote: | _> the argument is that these new tractors are not | repairable by yourself, leading to expensive repair_ | | Correct, but the tradeoff calculation includes offsetting | the expensive repair costs _with potential increased | productivity_. Or likewise with the other option, the | "savings" from cheap low-tech tractors may be negated by | _lower productivity_. | PeterisP wrote: | Things will break. Costs isn't everything, time to fix | matters. An older tractor can usually be repaired on the | same day on-site, causing a few hours of downtime; a | newer tractor that will be returned from service in a | week causes a _huge_ loss of productivity. | zinekeller wrote: | That might be justifiable if the service network is | basically as fast as a DIY repair, however from what I | read it is still treated to be a week-long turnover which | might be fine for a low-stake consumer device but a | downtime here means that net productivity will be lower | than having less efficient but easily repairable | machines. | ThemalSpan wrote: | You can retrofit gps control systems onto older machines. | jasode wrote: | _> You can retrofit gps control systems onto older | machines._ | | The highest precision accuracy of RTK devices has vendor- | proprietary encrypted signals. E.g: https://www.google.com/ | search?q=rtk+signal+encrypted+gps+%22... | | So it seems like retrofitting for "precision ag" also | depends on what commercial "RTK network" is offered in the | farmer's local area. I think regular GPS is only ~10 ft | accuracy so not sure of farmers are retrofitting tractor | steering for that lower resolution. | myself248 wrote: | Yeah but you don't need commercial services to get down | to the inch anymore. Running your own base station has | gotten cheap and easy; witness Sparkfun selling their RTK | Express kit like hotcakes. | | Integrating it into the vehicle is a fun second ROS | project for someone who already built a toy robot car. | There's a substantial population of highschoolers | building the necessary skills, the trick is just to | connect them to the jobs. | mcculley wrote: | >I think regular GPS is only ~10 ft accuracy | | This has not been true for quite a while. The equipment | used on surveying, farming, and construction equipment is | much more accurate thanks to the availability of multiple | GNSSs (e.g., GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou) and | terrestrial base stations to remove error (WAAS, DGPS). | | See: | https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/ | snovv_crash wrote: | New 'dual-band' GPS systems have 30cm / 1ft accuracy | without any basestation requirements. The chips cost $250 | instead of $10, and they require different antennas, but | 1ft is at a point where dropping further IMO has limited | gains. | rdtwo wrote: | If you add a serveyed ground station you should be able | to do way better than that | bryanrasmussen wrote: | well that sounds like marketing, which sometimes marketing | can be correct, and sometimes it can be a bunch of BS. I | don't know which is the case here but my hunch would be that | if it were correct then old iron wouldn't be worth more than | new to the people who would be best suited to know if it were | BS or not. | | There at any rate seems to be a discrepancy between what is | supposed to be the case, and what people who should know seem | to believe is the case. | jasode wrote: | _> sometimes marketing can be correct, and sometimes it can | be a bunch of BS. I don't know which is the case here but | my hunch would be that if it were correct then old iron | wouldn't be worth more than new to the people who would be | best suited to know if it were BS or not._ | | I don't know if the auctions bidding wars are driven up by | homeowners managing their small homestead farm or by bigger | commercial operations. Homeowners don't need to compete so | buying 30-year old tractors is an easier decision. | | I agree that using old tech can be an _counterintuitive_ | cost-saving strategy -- like FedEx deliberately using a | fleet of very old planes that are gas guzzlers instead of | buying the latest jets that are more fuel-efficient. Maybe | some big commercial farms deliberately buy used low-tech | tractors. When I drive around, all the big operations seem | to use the newest tractors. They seem to always trade up | instead of down. But maybe the latest John Deere "lock in" | and repair costs will make them reverse that buying | pattern. | fy20 wrote: | In my (post-Soviet) country it's still quite common to see | Kamaz construction equipment (actual construction, e.g. light- | weight cranes) from the 80s and 90s being used. | | It's not that new equipment is not affordable (if something | needs a 100t Liebherr crane, it'll come), but all the emissions | equipment on new vehicles is a lot more expensive to maintain, | so it's simpler and cheaper to keep old vehicles running. | universa1 wrote: | Hmm, early 90s "we" already had about 180hp... Nowadays more | like 300 to 400 for a tractor, and more for caterpillar like | stuff... With the electronics obviously being a double edged | sword... You kinda need them to efficiently use those big | machines... | | The smaller stuff is still around, but from my experience | mostly for "hobby" farmers in Germany :-) | LgWoodenBadger wrote: | From the heavy equipment operators I watch, a lot of them have | an extreme dislike for DEF and the regen cycles that all modern | diesels over 25hp (iirc) require. | dboreham wrote: | Yes "emissions" engines have a reputation for unreliability | and costly maintenance. | SQL2219 wrote: | Lamborghini still makes tractors https://www.lamborghini- | tractors.com/it-it/ | ilamont wrote: | If right-to-repair and ease of maintenance are such huge issues | for farmers, why doesn't some up-and-coming manufacturer fill | this niche? | structural wrote: | They do! They make parts for old tractors (really, old tractor | chassis once everything else has been replaced a few times). | | As far as why doesn't a new tractor manufacturer start up, they | have to compete with a few things: first, the market for old | tractors and parts (if they are repairable basically forever | and the amount of land used by agriculture isn't changing, this | is not a growth market). Worse, it's much more difficult to | design a small engine for sale that is both reliable and will | pass current environmental regulations. This is a major barrier | to entry that didn't exist decades ago. | | So if you're a startup in the ag space, it makes eminently more | sense to make small parts for someone else's platform, which is | why you see companies doing things like deploying GPS, cameras, | lidar, datalogging systems. There, the market opportunity is | "all tractors could benefit from this", the competition is | initially "other small companies", the exit strategy is "get | purchased by a large manufacturer who would rather buy than | develop the tech themselves", and the regulatory environment is | much more friendly. | R0b0t1 wrote: | Does farm equipment need to pass environmental regulations? I | didn't think it did. If it does I doubt there will ever be a | startup in this area. | mschuster91 wrote: | Most farm equipment will be driven on roads, so yes, it | will have to comply with emission regulations. | R0b0t1 wrote: | That's neither necessary or sufficient -- farm equipment | is given passes for most car requirements and I know does | not strictly meet existing EPA regs, but I am unsure if | it has absolutely no regs or not. | Osiris wrote: | 1. Capital requirements 2. Patents | [deleted] | giantg2 wrote: | There will be a lot of demand for less electronic cars too. Once | the mandatory intoxication and automatic braking takes effect in | 2026, demand for older cars will go up. | errcorrectcode wrote: | Belarus has problems right now, but US farmers on the side of R2R | have been buying old John Deere tractors as in the article and | modern ones from more repairable vendors like Minsk Tractor | Works. | michaelcampbell wrote: | If I'm reading the graph right, this is about the same prices as | 2008-2013? | | So although the prices have been lower between then and now, it's | suddenly a crisis when prices are what they were 7-12 years ago? | [deleted] | gremloni wrote: | Mahindra tractors from India are used all over the Midwest. I can | see why- they're solid but can still be fixed by a farmer. | tomc1985 wrote: | Interesting... I remember encountering Mahindra vehicles in | South America and wondered why I they didn't seem to be in the | 'States at all ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-11-14 23:00 UTC)