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NWIL | That was not the attitude that I was expressing at all, not at all.
What I was trying to get at was simple statistics. The volume of all machinery is just not made in the numbers as it once was. Total tractor/combine/planter/etc has been on a downward trend since mechanized farming began. As fewer machines are bought and made, they tend to get larger and larger as that is what is requested and purchased by those that write the checks for machines with warranty.
For smaller farms, they tend to by used equipment, which had to be bought new by someone, likely a larger farm/operation. Hence a trickle down effect is in place. New buying operations tend to go up in size/power as they replace things, which correspondingly leaves the next size down as the first step in the used selection, then the rest gets shuffled down one spot. After XXX years, the stuff at the bottom just doesn't have much value or use left in it as its just been used up. Throw in that the markets south of the border and in SE Asia bought up a lot of it and it's left our borders, the selection just gets even smaller.
Two row planters got replaced by four, then six, then eight, then twelve, then sixteen, then twenty four, and now one can select to go larger.
Wagons were fifty bushel, then 150, 250, 350, 500, 640, etc, etc etc.
Tractors were 40hp, 60, 80, 100, 150, 200.....600.
Combines the same. Tillage the same. Sprayers, trucks, augers, every piece of equipment in a shed, the same.
There eventually comes a time when a company just can't justify building new equipment of certain sizes as no one is stepping up to buy it new off the factory floor. When this happens, the shortage immediately begins and as time goes on its availability becomes less and less and less.
You are 100% true that not every operation needs or desires a 24 row planter with 400hp pulling it, and a 12 row class 8 combine doing the harvesting while dumping into 1300 bushel carts. However, its also true that those operations weren't buying sufficient quantities of the equipment that they wanted new to keep a decent amount in the used supply chain and eventually it's availability will run quite low for stuff that hasn't had its functionality used up. It is not a matter of the small don't deserve to keep on farming with what they want, its a matter of economics on the manufacturers' part, and for that matter the farming operations' parts. A company won't make and sell things if there isn't enough profit there to justify it, so things just happen to get dropped from the lineup.
Edited by j.p 3/19/2023 13:12
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Late model equipment for sale?
