Home, Home on Lagrange…
-Robert Anton Wilson, The Schrodinger’s Cat Trilogy
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Ah, so we will all die of starvation then. I’ll keep that in mind
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What about Claas, Lindner, SDF ?
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Not in the US. Claas tractors are OK, but not the best, some are rebadged SDF stuff now. The Lindner models look interesting- simple and well made. Expensive though.
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That, and wide-spread adoption of small scale agriculture!
People eat way too much, anyway.
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You made a good Point.
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“Blah blah John Deere is so bad! I read about it on a book I got from Amazon!”
Seriously, that’s Amazon’s goal too, yo.
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We bought a used Kubota M series off the county thirty years ago, still running with nary a hiccup.
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Ukrainian firmware that releases the tractor.
Russian ransomware that locks the tractor back up.
The eternal cycle of life.
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At least the Russians are only charging the straight fee. No travel time, diagnostics or other BS.
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So now the only farming co-ops are when someone botnets the Internet of Tractors?
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It may be about where dealerships are located, but in our part of Colorado, JD and Kubota seem to be the two brands people are buying. My Dad recently bought new baling implements, but he cleverly bought ones from a guy who restores International Harvester units from the 40s and 50s. They are really pretty, and awesomely sturdy. Of course, they do the rectangular bales. And they use baling wire, instead of the twine that is more popular now.
My good news today is that I got the motor rebuilt on the 1997 JD that I have been working on, and got it started. I have to put some body panels back on tomorrow, but it is running. We finished rebuilding it yesterday, but the crankshaft was not turning as free as it should have been, so I had to tear it down and reposition a piston clamp. So I have now torn down that particular engine four times, and another JD tractor I have which is 10 years older, has been torn down zero times, even though it gets more use and gets parked outdoors.
But back to the topic of the article, there is by necessity an entire underground economy of farm equipment mods and fixes. For many of us, there is not even a dealership nearby. Just getting some of the larger pieces of equipment loaded onto a trailer and trucked to the dealership is a big deal. Most people don’t even have the hauling equipment. Then there is the wait for them to get around to working on it, and it has to be returned. All that is too expensive and time consuming. Plus, there is the knowledge that they know that they are taking unfair advantage of us, and don’t think that there is anything we can do about it. That is a prime motivator for me.
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I remember an international episode of Scrapheap Challenge where a British team were pitted against a group of USA farmers. They had to make something that squashed a car flat. The British team made a hydraulic press - worked beautifully but was complicated and it broke before it was done. The American farmers made a huge hammer out of a truck. Simple and effective. I heard that Australian farmers use old trucks for water pumps, electricity generators, and all sorts of things. If you live miles from anywhere, you learn to make do.
Was this likely to end any other way?
I wish every community could be this robust. But it’s hard work.
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What is wrong with US farmers since they seem to continue to buy this crap?
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There probably are, but it takes a lot of time and money to develop, build, and market a tractor. And you have to pay for that, and it has to come in some combination of upfront purchase costs and long term support costs. So you have to go out and convince your potential customers that A) they should actually buy a new tractor, and B) they should pay as much or more for your startup tractor as they would paid for an equivalent JD, explaining how much they will save in the long run on overpriced support. If you do a good job, have a growing base of happy customers, then there is a very good chance that JD or another big company will buy you out, which is probably good for you but doesn’t really solve the underlying problem for the farmers. Even if you are committed to staying independent for the benefit of your customers, if you ever had to sell equity to finance all that R&D work, there is a very good chance you have no choice in the matter.
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Congratulations on getting the 97 running! I agree with your Dad, though - I don’t plan to own any agricultural machinery built after the early 70s. Some of the old stuff can be converted to full electric - the Allis-Chalmers model G can be converted into a superb electric tractor with very little work. And you can get great old farmalls and other tractors that don’t have 3-point hitches very cheaply if you shop around - the lack of 3ph compatibility makes the tractors and tools both much cheaper, although less available.
This keeps turning into a politics thread somehow ;).
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