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The issue is really about freedom. If you don't care that a company can decide whether or not you may farm, then rent their equipment. If you do care, then you

by _wldu 5y ago

The issue is really about freedom. If you don't care that a company can decide whether or not you may farm, then rent their equipment. If you do care, then you want 100% control of that equipment. Or as close to 100% as you can get. It's sort of comparable to writing software in C (an ISO standard with many open source compilers) to run on your commodity x86 hardware versus writing an iOS Apple Store app. In one case, you have almost complete control of the HW and SW, in the other, you have no control and can be prevented from doing so at any moment for any reason.

DubiousPusher 5y ago
It's not that simple. There are features of these high end tractors such as automation and satellite guidance that allow you to change the scale of your operation. In a sense, you have to make a choice about what kind of business you're going to be at the same time as you're choosing your equipment.
- debacle 5y ago
  There are aftermarket solutions for that as well. Deere is for people who want a deluxe brand that is all encompassing vs users who don't mind fiddling with their hardware.
  - DubiousPusher 5y ago
    Yeah but if you're running a fleet, then you have to scale your outfitting and maintenance to handle that. It's not practical for a lot of people. A lot of businesses lose their ass by trying to focus on too many things at the same time. I'm not saying this is the right way for ag. to go forward. But all our incentives right now are to either specialize a small farm around high margin product or scale as wide as possible on low margin product. That is going to set a lot of people on the course of basically renting their equipment and deferring the maintenance to the provider. We probably should create some incentives for farmers to be more self reliant. That would probably be good for our sustainability but I don't think we should ignore that currently the choice isn't black and white.

by _wldu 5y ago

DubiousPusher 5y ago

It's not that simple. There are features of these high end tractors such as automation and satellite guidance that allow you to change the scale of your operation. In a sense, you have to make a choice about what kind of business you're going to be at the same time as you're choosing your equipment.

debacle 5y ago
There are aftermarket solutions for that as well. Deere is for people who want a deluxe brand that is all encompassing vs users who don't mind fiddling with their hardware.
- DubiousPusher 5y ago
  Yeah but if you're running a fleet, then you have to scale your outfitting and maintenance to handle that. It's not practical for a lot of people. A lot of businesses lose their ass by trying to focus on too many things at the same time. I'm not saying this is the right way for ag. to go forward. But all our incentives right now are to either specialize a small farm around high margin product or scale as wide as possible on low margin product. That is going to set a lot of people on the course of basically renting their equipment and deferring the maintenance to the provider. We probably should create some incentives for farmers to be more self reliant. That would probably be good for our sustainability but I don't think we should ignore that currently the choice isn't black and white.