Also here we can see: a machine, in this case a tractor, has to be more complicated in the future to ensure economic growth and to rise added value.
For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
331–340 of 511 posts
Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
#332That's it, I'm holding onto my 20 year old mobile phone in case it makes a resurgence in another 20 years. Replaceable battery, no tracking, and components you can see and re-solder!
Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Do you have a source for plumbers being on par with psychiatrists? I have friends in the trades (back in Australia) and my impression is that their pay isn't as high as is commonly believed.
Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
#334Earlier 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.
>>currently corporate agriculture is less sustainable as they make little to no efforts in maintaining or building the top soil depth
How did you come to this conclusion? I'm close the industry, and in my experience, corporate farms spend a great deal of effort maintaining soil, which includes using drones to visually inspect crops to see where soil may be lacking certain nutrients based on foliage color analysis.
Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
You make an interesting point. I think ideally what we want is: * easy automation for those that need it; if corporations want to driverless tractors doing all their farming, so be it. They're responding to a market that is demanding a lot of cheap food. * occupation as a choice; the productivity gains from automation shouldn't all just pile on to the people who made the investment; but it could be used to provide ne…
I don't have any references for this, just the farmers I have spoken to, so take this with a grain of salt. The massive mono-crop farming apparently have the draw-back of not following some of the recycling processes that old school, small farm farmers did to keep the soil rich and diverse in nutrients. i.e. rotating out crops, bringing in animals to eat old crops, flowers, provide diverse waste product as fertilizer…
> small farm farmers did to keep the soil rich and diverse in nutrients
Some old school small farmers did this. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, they famously did not, leading to the dust bowl. That was caused by small farms, not industrial farmers.
But I totally agree that modern industrial agriculture only does the bare minimum to keep nutrient levels up.
Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
...I've done it and it was nothing like that.
Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
>Why is it only don't work on cars or pollute like no tomorrow?
Who said it was? The comment mentioned working on the engine specifically, there's not much DRM that can interfere with working on the engine unless you're trying to tune your ECU.
It's not like the N20 is going to check your pistons and connecting rods for authenticity before starting after all.
There are not even that many parts in BMWs that are VIN-locked, and much fewer with actual DRM. Usually the parts referred to with that, the BCMs are VIN-locked by most manufacturers (I know GM and Mercedes both do the same)
I'm sure you can come up with some outlier parts for specific models, but in general, complexity of newer cars it the enemy of repair, not some active attempt to get you into a dealership.
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In fact, I'd almost say the opposite is true of brands like BMW. They make a lot of money of leases with "maintenance included".
As they caught on to how brilliantly leases were paying off they started to stretch recommended service intervals to keep people out of the dealership as much as possible.
Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
#338"These things, they’re basically bulletproof. You can put 15,000 hours on it and if something breaks you can just replace it.” Amen. It is true that there is always someone saying "Things were better back then." But that doesn't always mean that they are wrong.
As a person operating decades old equipment I see trade offs here. Old machines are reliable and cheap to operate, but they are also NOISY, steering require quite some muscle strength and cabin without ac and filters is not pleasant and most importantly good for your health.
>steering require quite some muscle strength and cabin without ac and filters is not pleasant and most importantly good for your health.
Yeah, AC and filters don't require a computer. Neither does power steering, to my knowledge.
Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think human nature incentivizes top-down corporate business structures and disincentivizes co-op businesss structures.
I would be very careful in trying to attribute something as complex as corporate structures to human nature. We have seen massive changes in all parts of society throughout the last 10k years. I don't think the human genome has changed so rapidly as to cycle through slavery, feudalism, mercantilism, capitalism, etc.
It's always such a convenient and supremely lazy explanation. It's human nature for blacks to be servile. It's human nature for peasants to be ruled by the lord of the manor. And so on.
Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
#340Earlier 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.
Perhaps the older generation is actually less sustainable. I recall a friend telling me how frustrating it was to be back farming with his dad because his dad insisted on tilling up the field every spring instead of using no-till methods.