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

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

#31

Post by sailfast »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #21

My understanding is that farming equipment is quite specialized, but I fail to see how no entrepreneur has capitalized on making "old school" tractors today. The immediate retort is that John Deere's approach is maximally profitable-- but is it? Sketchy websites host hacked firmware giving farmers the freedom to work on their own tractors anyways. The equipment manufacturers have lost their goodwill with farmers. Fro…

This occurred to me as well. At a minimum it would seem like a good idea for a larger Ag business to work with a competitor to bring Deere back to that line of thinking.

The farmer in the article that hooked up their own Satellite steering has got the right idea. I don't rely on my Auto manufacturer's entertainment console - I use a software company's version because it's better, and gets regular updates.

Can you imagine your entire net worth that year being determined by a single badly timed software push from a tractor company? (Granted, they may have "pivoted" to be quite good at software, but it doesn't sound like that's the case here) That would be frightening to me.

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

#32

Post by xupybd »

pleasantpeasant wrote: post #19
xtian wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vote with your vote. As far as I know only two candidates in the presidential primary race support right-to-repair: Sanders and Warren.

Yet, farmers will keep voting against their interests and vote for a Republican who is being lobbied by these same companies taking away their right-to-repair.

Farmers have complex interests. Right to repair is not the only issue they will be voting on.

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

#33

Post by dejv »

Somebody posted about open source tractor, but deleted the post before I managed to reply, so here we go:

Growing up in communist country it was really hard to buy tractor for your personal use as private enterprise ls was prohibited and all land was confiscated except of 1000m2 for personal use.

Owning tractors even for land this large (and to share with family and friends) was still something desirable so people come with their own designs build on top of ready-made or repurposed materials.

I can still see those machines from 70s or even 50s still working as there is nothing in them to break down.

I personally own 30 years old tractor which first life was spent on rice field of Japan. Again very simple build and outside of structural damage there is almost nothing that can fail. I am sure it will live for another 40 or 50 years without much problems.

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

#34

Post by xtian »

viator wrote: post #26
xtian wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vote with your vote. As far as I know only two candidates in the presidential primary race support right-to-repair: Sanders and Warren.

Because the shortest path to fixing anything is always electing a politician who knows nothing about that thing, in order to have them approve legislation written by other people who know nothing about that thing, that demands that companies do a thing. That always works great.

Certainly all the greatest societal reforms have been brought about by individual purchasing decisions.

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

#35

Post by svachalek »

xtian wrote: post #11
maxmalysh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vote with your wallet.

Vote with your vote. As far as I know only two candidates in the presidential primary race support right-to-repair: Sanders and Warren.

I think voting with your wallet is the more sensible approach to getting the products you want, but we also need politicians to stop passing crazy laws that make it illegal for you to even attempt repairing your own possessions.

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

#36

Post by lostgame »

RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #7

There is probably a sizable market for building out software and technology for 'upgrading' older farm equipment to modern principals, such as self driving, variable rate fertilization, variable rate planting, etc. When I was more involved in ag research I met several farmers who DIY built themselves variable rate fertilization drills. While its not ubiquitous, the farming community has a very long culture of DIY out…

>> the farming community has a very long culture of DIY out of pure necessity

Can confirm. And it's largely because a farmer's job is the management of dozens, hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of living beings - whether those are animals or plants.

Thusly the level of unpredictability exponentially increases in this field versus a number of other fields - and yet this field is hypercritical to the sustainment of humanity itself.

With weather, disease, and all other mitigating factors taken into mind, and despite a farmer's best efforts, there may be entire large sections of crops that completely fail - or animals that get diseased and affect the rest of the herd. This can lead to significant losses that I've unfortunately experienced firsthand.

If it's Harvest season - that season only lasts a very certain, specified period of time, and if equipment fails, farmers will do whatever they have to do to hack around to make it work.

I've seen an incredible amount of DIY innovation firsthand in these kind of crises. Farmers are some of the most hardworking, dedicated, and innovative people I've ever had the pleasure to meet.

And let me tell you - when farmers are dealing with crises like this - the idea of a piece of software getting in their way, when a single day or two can make all the difference in the world - it's not something they want to be involved with, unless they know they can fix it themselves.

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

#37

Post by bsder »

sneak wrote: post #20
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…

If customers don’t want this stuff, why isn’t there a competing company offering non-DRM tractors?

Because manufacturing isn't software.

It takes a LOT of capital to build a company capable of manufacturing something like a tractor. And nobody will buy it initially because it has an unknown reliability record.

Look at the article, the farmers all make predictions about exactly how long those John-Deere tractors will last because they have roughly 40 years of experience working with them.

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

#38

Post by asdff »

pleasantpeasant wrote: post #29

Right to repair laws need to be put in place. American corporations are trying to reach a point where you don't own products. You are merely long-term renting or leasing products from them. And any alterations or repairs will come with a heavy price. It's already hard enough to repair your own vehicle without taking it to a dealership. How long until small car shops can't even fix any cars if they don't have the tool…

That reality is already here. Good luck getting your Tesla serviced at the local garage.

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

#39

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

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…

In other markets, customers could just switch to a new business that was less shady. In this particular case, it doesn't seem like there are many alternative suppliers, so farmers have no other options. If they did, they would've gone with them. Buying decades-old tractors suggested they somewhat already have tried to find alternatives.

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

#40

Post by lonelappde »

privateSFacct wrote: post #9
melling wrote: post #6

“ They cost a fraction of the price, and then the operating costs are much less because they’re so much easier to fix,” he said.” It’s not really so much a technology problem as the ability to repair, probably by the farmers themselves. Companies don’t make it easy. You need special equipment, tools, etc. We could insist on a right to repair, open standards, etc

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.

If the machine used standard specs and protocols, you could buy replacement boards on a competitive open market.
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