JamesJr makes good points. There is an economy of scale at work...if you're big enough, you need the reliable, newer, expensive equipment to get the job done.....but you need to be big to have any hope of affording such equipment. When I was farming many years ago, we hired our combining done. Being small farmers, we watched neighbors with 20 year old used combines spend the time they should have been harvesting working on their old equipment. No one wants to hire a job done when, soon, hopefully, their own combine will be back in operation. Saw crops get hailed out while the owner was waiting on parts or working on machinery. We priced out newer, more reliable combines....and the payment was close to our custom harvesting bill. We could usually get custom harvesters when we needed them.
