For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity • Hacker News Board

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#321

Post by holoduke » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 1:02 AM UTC

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #283

earlINmeyerkeg wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The greatest innovation in the history of mankind was a land consolidation. It took what 100 peasants all making enough food for subsistence living to 100 peasants be able to make enough food for thousands of people. It's not sad, it's progress.

The end of peasantry was long before the rise of corporate, industrialised agriculture. Like so many human activities, fashions, and innovations, the reduction in numbers required to work the land started off providing a benefit and ultimately went much too far. Looking at the destruction such as algal blooms in countless water courses from over fertilisation, steady soil erosion, loss of wild flora and fauna caused…

Yes maybe the word progress is wrong. It should be control. In the end the goal of human kind is to take control of every square inch on this planet. Farming has shown some real advancing examples of this principle

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#322

Post by AngryData » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 1:05 AM UTC

johnchristopher wrote: post #254

macinjosh wrote: post #98

My grandfather, rest his soul, was a 3rd generation rancher and farmer. He bought 2 John Deere tractors in the '80s and used them for 35 years. They are still being used to this day on the ranch. Growing up, I visited the ranch regularly. Farming and ranching is very hard on equipment so the tractors often needed repair. My father and grandfather could seemingly fix anything on the tractor without even needing to go…

Do you think end-users products from corporation style farms are cheaper than family farm (for equivalent quality) ?

Cheaper, yes, but currently corporate agriculture is less sustainable as they make little to no efforts in maintaining or building the top soil depth, and instead reap the soil for marginal yield gains and then buy out the small 75+ year well tended farm and do it all over again. Eventually having decent farm land is going to cost a premium and food price will rise because of it. Short term gains for long term costs.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#323

Post by dsfyu404ed » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 1:06 AM UTC

brenden2 wrote: post #16

The technology itself is not the issue, the problem is that companies are at war with their customers. These companies will go to any length to extract as much revenue as possible. Milking your customers is not good for business, especially if you drive them into insolvency. I hope in the future there are more companies that try to align incentives with their customers, such that their business practices help custome…

>I hope in the future there are more companies that try to align incentives with their customers, such that their business practices help customers be more successful (although many of them preach this, very few actually do). Many businesses these days seem to be geared toward making a quick buck, rather than really providing any value.

You're probably gonna need to wait until the current generation of MBAs retires for that.

This is an educational issue to some extent. All the problems that are now coming home to roost are the result of things business schools have been preaching as gospel from the 80s to present. New ideas are going to need to come along and all those people trained in the old ways are going to need to cycle out before we see meaningful change.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#324

Post by jay_kyburz » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 1:08 AM UTC

andybalholm wrote: post #234

jay_kyburz wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you not simply copy the 40 year old tractors almost exactly. Any patents should be expired.

Nope. If you did, I'm pretty sure the EPA would shut you down. Emissions regulations aren't quite as strict for tractors as for cars and trucks, but they are headed in the same direction. I don't think it's possible to meet emissions without computerized controls. And once you've put hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of electronics on the tractor, it's hard to resist the temptation to add DRM.

I know nothing about engines and found this article a good introduction about how computer controls help reduce emissions. https://www.pitchcare.com/news-media/diesel-engine-emissions...

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#325

Post by vunie » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 1:19 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #306

stjohnswarts wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what's being overlooked is "it's good for businesses in the short term" not necessarily good for them in the long term.

But it needs to be followed with observing that the market doesn't give two damns about long term, because anyone optimizing for long-term profitability eventually gets outcompeted by someone optimizing for shorter-term profitability.

what about amazon?

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#326

Post by DaniFong » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 1:31 AM UTC

Pay attention Hacker News!

In this, finally open source software/hardware has a giant market opportunity and a population with demands:

onwards; go and solve this need!

make something people want: good, reliable, sustainable (in every sense) farm equipments and systems (fertilizer, pest control, seed)

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#327

Post by bsagdiyev » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 1:33 AM UTC

BoorishBears wrote: post #227

xnyan wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's already here. The only reason I can do my own work on my N20 engine BMW is because they implemented really bad and vulnerable car DRM that can be trivially defeated, but they have improved on that in latter models.

You can't work on them, or you can't flash them with emissions control defeating tunes?

Or install a replacement part without taking it to the BMW dealership and having them code it to the car. Why is it only don't work on cars or pollute like no tomorrow? There is a middle ground and a lot of people are screwed by DRM like this because of it.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#328

Post by system2 » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 1:35 AM UTC

planteen wrote: post #110

privateSFacct wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All good ideas, but repairing surface mount / integrated / dust and vibration glued parts is not as easy EVEN IF they were open standards as a 40 year old tractor is to repair. I spent way to long repairing an old gas engine, it was super simple in terms of operating approach. Opening the hood on my new car - the fixes are not as obvious.

Some things are much easier with ODB electronics though. Like if a cylinder is misfiring, you pull out a code scanner and see exactly which spark plug needs to get replaced.

Good luck replacing it without giving the car computer mental breakdown. I replaced my car's tire once and all the sensors went crazy until engine light came on. They are not making those car software forgiving.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#329

Post by Balgair » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 1:35 AM UTC

unapologetic wrote: post #268

NicoJuicy wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tractor as a service will only bite them back. Look at how popular 40-year old tractors are :) It's never been a better time to create a good old repairable machine.

They all want to get to the point of being Tesla. Hiding features only in software, pushing out updates, and trying to bake in a living (recurring revenue) model. It's a problem for a lot of reasons. First off it's the complete death of ownership. I can't fix things. At some point they will probably just lock stuff back down if I want to sell, assuming I can even sell without them getting a cut. Second, repairability…

> I can't fix things.

This one sticks out to me from a job-market POV.

Plumbers are already on par with psychiatrists in terms of pay. Sure, the work is hard, but from a supply-demand POV, the markets are saying that they do work that is of equal value (all this varies highly, but stick with me here).

Most repair work takes a LOT of experience until the employee is anywhere near proficient. Farmers will tell you that they learned the repair side in very stressful situations and that there is always something that breaks in new, and more expensive, ways each and every time. Repairing even 'simple' machines like a tractor takes a lot of experience.

So, when you add in a computer that intentionally 'breaks' the machine, and then you have the regular machine that will break, and then you have all the linkages that make the computer control the machine (all of which can break), you are requiring that the repair-person be VERY skilled at troubleshooting and repair.

Then, you eliminate most of the ways that people learn to troubleshoot and repair these machines (via these computers), and you are left with even fewer people that will be able to fix the tractors. Think something more like a bio-tech/MRI company's field-service engineers. Those people get paid bank to get sent out to malfunctioning machines and they are trained out the wazoo.

From the tractor manufacturer's perspective, yes, making machines that work for the manufacturer and not the customer, is going to really work out well for this quarter's stock price. But down the road 7 years? I think this is a poison pill.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#330

Post by oh_sigh » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 1:38 AM UTC

AngryData wrote: post #322

johnchristopher wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think end-users products from corporation style farms are cheaper than family farm (for equivalent quality) ?

Cheaper, yes, but currently corporate agriculture is less sustainable as they make little to no efforts in maintaining or building the top soil depth, and instead reap the soil for marginal yield gains and then buy out the small 75+ year well tended farm and do it all over again. Eventually having decent farm land is going to cost a premium and food price will rise because of it. Short term gains for long term costs.

Industrial agriculture would still be cheaper than bespoke farming even if they were good stewards of their soil, if only because of economies of scale.