Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living How the other haf lives.

What, $750,000 ?

WOW...prices have really shot up! I left a John Deere Dealership 18 years ago, and prices were bad then. I love all you farmer's, from the bottom of my heart, but I'm happy to be out of the business!

Best times of the year, spring and fall, too many hours at the Dealership. But the farmer's were for a good part, nice, honest and hard working people. I miss a bunch of them.

Now I work in the gambling industry, on the machine end, as technical support. Have problem's with machine? Call my 1-800 phone number.
9:00 -5:00 are my current hours, Mon-Fri. Good job and pays well, but I still miss my farmer friend's.

Keep up the good work guys, on feeding our country!

Your point? Success for those that worked their azzez off in pizzwhole places?

Ed, in my attempt to decipher Richard, I think all he meant was machinery is getting expensive.


Everything is getting expensive.


Figure new tractors are about $1k per HP.



And just like used cars, used machinery is going up.

Times change, If I had the money that cost I'd buy land.

By the way, we owned land in Idaho once.
Sandpoint.

Well, there ya go!

Friend that grew up outside Wichita, was there recently visiting family and got to drive this monster.
He’s 6’4” for reference. Don’t know model.

I couldn't afford the tires for that!

I have a friend out in eastern CO that has three each of those big machines.Tractors, combines, no till planters, sprayers, semi size grain trucks, one of those track driven machines and a few other things.He and his two sons farm 12-14,000 acres. Most of it is leased,corn,wheat, soy beans. Irrigated and dry land. I knew the family when they were in the beef business and running 300 or so head .They got out of that and went to straight farming, All three have degrees in agriculture and business. Great down to earth hard working family that have made it all on their own like most farmers and ranchers

My gripe with the high steppers, is, all too often they run families off the land.

They pay top rent, and end up with little to show for it, other than putting on a show.

And, there are 8 (eight!!) tires! Hold into the pneumatic.

I was impressed by the size of the discer too! He said it’s fifty (50!) feet!

Kidding about pard’s height. He’s really about 5’7”.

The people I know that lease land, mostly lease land that the husband has died and the older widows come to them or younger kids inherit it and want to keep the land, but don't want to farm it. He does buy some when it comes up for sale. Win-win because the land doesn't get broke up to small parcels, widows and such have an income and can still live in their home of 50-70 years. This is a common problem with farming communities now days

Those guys paying top rent go bust in a few years.I think it is the conglomerate and foreign buyers that are running families off their land.The family I know are 4th generation farmers that have been in the area since it was homesteaded

I grew up in an orchard, and couldn't see a viable economic future in it -- and my brother proved the point by losing it in three years. I'm looking at a 180 farm next door right now with one of my managers, and I can't figure out why on earth anyone would buy land to farm. Even figuring hay yields 30% above the county average, the revenue from the hay would leave only about 30K a year after paying the bank to pay for everything else, water, power, labor, diesel, equipment...... never mind labor. I just don't get it -- at some point, you have to look at it as a business, and the business sucks.....

New equipment, especially the big stuff, is priced through roof. I couldn't afford it 40 years ago when I was farming, and certainly couldn't today.

Been this way for a long time, but folks with a well-maintained diesel JD 3020 or 4020 are sitting on a gold mine. My uncle still has the 3020 he started farming with back in '68. It's a 'utility' tractor now - grinds feed, pushes a little snow, grades the driveways.

No way can you buy land to farm with today and make a living unless you inherited it.Borrow money to buy it and you won't break even.If you already have the money,you can invest the same amount it would cost to buy land and sit on your butt from the proceeds

All my life. I've heard, it takes one piece of equal sized land to pay for one other.

About ten years ago 2 local 20 year olds went into the diary business.
Rented an idle farm, got a milking herd, equipment.....

Not from rich families, neither was big into diary.
They all claimed there was no gubment money involved!

Who the f... they thought they were kidding, I have no idea.

Within 18 months they weren't fair farmers anymore.

Perspective:

I reckon I'm a small operation...

Yep,those disc need to be able to unfold to do a 130 ft swath

9370r

JD offers it with over 500hp now.

Thanks.

Quarter mil+ Used. 😳

I follow the Welker Family on YouTube, and had an epiphany.
Years of being around farms and this had eluded me.

Utilization of farm equipment sucks.
Farms are full of high dollar equipment that is rarely used.
Didn't used to be so bad, all equipment got attatched to the tractor,
and the tractor was used a lot.

But watching Welkers they own 3 big Buds and a Case that's their utility
tractor. A JD that just runs a grain vac.

Those Buds run a lot of hours in 1-2 months.
Then very little to not at all. One is basically a spare.
New, $1,000,000?

When you look at other heavy equipment businesses, many need
the equipment to run 24/7/365 to cover expenses.

Highway equipment got me thinking about this.
Seeing a $300,000 dozer sit beside a road job and only be used
a few hours over the summer. Exactly how much money do we pay
that contractor to cover equipment cost on (necessary) equipment
that only contributes a few hours to the job. They have to charge to cover
payments, even if it isn't running.

Back to farming. How dam much per hour used does a $750,000
tractor cost. Considering there are months that it does nothing.
Not accounting for fuel/maintenance.
Just 12 x payment ÷ hours.

Reminds me. Back in the 1970s in west central Ks, two brothers who were neighbors went on a buying spree of land in our county. Interest was high and they were out bidding everyone for land and buying huge expensive machinery.
My dad wanted to buy some of that land, but his math said that an average crop from that land would not even pay the interest on the loan, let alone pay down part of the principle and make some profit.
Several years later, those two brothers filed for bankruptcy. They kept their homes but lost lots of land and equipment, and ended up in non farm town jobs to put food on the table.
The math is not that complicated and it doesn’t lie.

Bingo!

Lot of good sense/questions there.

The only reason I see for having equipment like that is "deadlines".

If you have 5000 acres to farm, and a narrow window in which you can plant/harvest... etc., it may be about the only way to do so under the deadline.

Of course.

Leasing isn't an option, how could a company have enough self propelled haybines to supply every farm. Or combines. It would put them in the same
situation, only worse.

Can't imagine there is any answer to the problem.
Some farmers will share some of the,
"Would be nice to have" equipment. But that's not the key stuff.
Here, there are a few who maintain a nice harvester, and do custom work
to help with the numbers.

Just through those thought out there to stir others.
See what might percolate, or, if someone else has ran the numbers.

We are small time grain farmers and small/medium size cow farmers.


Hit a good wheat crop last year and the price is up so we might gross $250k on the grain sales.

Hire spraying and combine work.

Our total machinery cost for drilling grain, maybe $50k. Bought a used tractor this year for $60k so we doubled up....lol


We are a LOW budget outfit but only seed 1200 acres of wheat, like I said, small time compared to the likes of the Welkers.

Rack up about 100 hours a year on our big tractor. It sits 50 weeks out of the year....




Cow side we put up most of our own hay and of course use (loader)tractors for feeding.

Total machinery cost(excluding feed pickups), around $300k.

Total hours? A bunch...


Start up a JD loader tractor or two damn near every day.



The guys running high dollar equipment either lease or farm a lot of acres. And it seems they are the first to get into trouble.



Old chit rules!

When you have a big operation, time is of the essence. There is often only a relatively small window of opportunity to put a crop out at the time for optimum yields, and to harvest before the quality of the crop starts going the other way. I have raised enough grain in my day, corn, wheat, and soybeans, to know how important that is. I often did not have the ability to plant and harvest on time, and it cost me.

It's easy for someone who doesn't grain farm to joke about someone having all that big equipment, but until you've been in their shoes, you really have no idea. Sure, they may not use that big stuff but only a few weeks a year, but without it, they could not do what they do.

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.