I’ve had lots of advice and discussions on the decision to buy new or make do with older farm equipment over the years.
Some farmers who keep older equipment humming along have no idea why someone would pay full price for new machinery.
There are those who swear by running new equipment to ensure uptime during planting and harvest.
Farmers cropping increasing numbers of acres need to make sure equipment is running for the limited number of days in the fall that equipment can get into the field. There’s high value placed on being ready to run when the weather cooperates and plants reach the moisture level ready for harvest.
I do scratch my head figuring out how much people pay to get that bit of risk management by purchasing new equipment, but they’re making the economic decisions for their farm and hats off to them if that works for them.
It’s not that black and white and there are courses run by groups like Agri-food Management Excellence to help make machinery decisions. It’s big money on many farms.
I grew up on a farm where we made things work with mostly older equipment, although we bought new loader tractors because they were the ones that had to start every day on the dairy farm. My father can see solutions to mechanical problems just by looking at them and then know the route to fixing something.
I didn’t inherit that ability.
I still don’t own new equipment, and I plug away at fixing it when needed, but that’s because my farm is on the small scale.
There was a recent Twitter discussion on the John Deere 8XR, one of the few tractors with four tracks that runs on a fixed frame. It’s an exceptional feat of engineering and design and it can also cost close to $1 million in Canada if you load it up with all the options.
The discussion was split between farmers who have one and called it the best tractor they’ve ever owned, and others who simply left dollar sign emojis.
One thing that fascinates me about the farm equipment market is how quickly it evolves and changes, usually based on global trends.
There’s a useful export market for equipment to the U.S. from Canada, and there’s also the base of solid economics provided by the supply-managed dairy and poultry sector.
It will be interesting to see how the current reverberations through global supply chains relating to delivery issues and the pandemic will change who buys new and who buys used. At this point, it’s tough to get some new equipment, and that’s bumped the price on used equipment. Buying new or newer equipment is a pretty good investment if you can sell it again for what you bought it for new.
Selection on farm equipment dealer lots looks a bit scant, but it varies quite a bit. They don’t look as sadly unstocked as auto dealer lots. One of my local auto dealers went so far as to put up a sign that they weren’t closed, the lot was just empty.
All these random thoughts on equipment bring me back to a cover story in a recent issue of Farmtario that continues to reverberate around in my head.
A recent analysis by Agri-Food Economic Systems says that as large farms get larger and use more newer equipment, there could come a time when the secondary machinery market for equipment for mid-size farms no longer exists. The system, with the diverse and varied farms we have in Ontario, helps larger farms when there’s a strong and continuing market for slightly used equipment.
Indeed there’s a wealth of farm equipment in Canada. We have varied and available mainline dealers (although there’s some consolidation). There’s a still-important group of suppliers of used equipment, for those who need parts for older equipment. And there’s a newer group of importers who also are injecting some competition into the market.
John Greig is the Editor of the Farmtario newspaper.
