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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

#401

Post by IggleSniggle »

nine_k wrote: post #380
combatentropy wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd actually buy a mechanical environmental-friendly car. I agree. In fact an electric car could be simple. Just because it has an electric motor doesn't mean it has to have a computer too.

It has to have a computer, the way your ICE car has a computer, or maybe the way your washing machine or a microwave has a computer (they all do). It should serve the driver, and be low-profile and unobtrusive.

Does my washer really have a computer? Electric control board, certainly, but the timers are all mechanical. What is there to compute?

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

#402

Post by jelliclesfarm »

ethbro wrote: post #370
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I'm designing a solar powered farming machine we hope we can make open source. A bunch of the parts can be printed on a $1000 printer. I hate proprietary technology, and I think our entire economy should consist of open/libre technology. It definitely feels like "big business" is working against us in this regard. Everything new is locked down because the the rent-seeking those software locks enable. It's a drag…

Do you have any idea how the Global Village Construction Set folks are doing? Or any other similar projects in the space? I stumbled across open source ag / construction efforts years ago, but haven't kept tabs on them since. And thanks for spending your time on something so useful to society!

Open source ecology has yearly meetings and projects. There is also have a slack group, iirc.

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

#403

Post by dumbfoundded »

steveklabnik wrote: post #157
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…

I come from at least three generations of cattle farmers. My dad had to work a tool and die job, because unlike his father, it was already not possible to raise a family via family farm. It's really brutal.

I actually think the trend is starting to reverse. At least in the area where I live in Ashland, OR where I have a 10-acre farm.

What I'm seeing is products are becoming more and more niche. Kind of like how craft beers became a thing. I think it's easier than ever for a farm to create specialized products and sell them directly to consumers. Before this way of ecommerce tools, it was nearly impossible for a small farm to sell without a broker or distributor or wholesaler. These people consolidated to give pricing power ie Tyson Foods which then forces farms to consolidate in this race to the bottom.

By eliminating middlemen, direct to consumer sales is better for the consumer. It's cheaper and products are better and more specific. In my industry distributors want to make 15% and retailers want 40%. Paying for the shipping is almost always cheaper than buying it in a store. You'll also generally get better products.

Really the only reason to buy from a store is convenience.

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

#404

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

heavyset_go wrote: post #358
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…

> The world changes and sometimes it sucks but that is how progress is made. Progress for whom? Seems like a false dichotomy to me.

I share your sentiment. In the case of farming is not so much progress as regress, at least in many cases.

For example, in Europe farmers can get the money from the EU, but only if they use certain seeds. So basically there are a couple of crops to choose from that get repeated year by year. What happens to the soil is a great disaseter. Obviusly nobody can use more natural kinds of fertilizers these days and the food gradually loses its nutrient value. The farmers are happy about announcing their bio certification but very few actually care about what happens to the soil. A similar "optimization" is being done with animal farming. It's disgusting and very far from actual progress.

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

#405

Post by jelliclesfarm »

Waterluvian wrote: post #139
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…

Thanks for sharing this about your grandfather. > The world changes and sometimes it sucks but that is how progress is made. This touches on something I think a lot about. Massive driverless farms, in my mind's eye, looks like one puzzle piece towards the utopia of the future. But you do lose the human aspect. It reminds me of Star Trek where Picard is working with his hands on a vineyard. Capitalism is abolished so…

my 2c: The future will be sustainable city states. Food shouldn’t be traded as a commodity. It has caused terribly ecological and environmental collateral damage.

Most food production should be taken indoors/covered cropping/CEA and commodity food crops should be taken off speculative financial exchanges and markets(Wall Street/commodity markets) but traded at consumer level.

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

#406

Post by jelliclesfarm »

pm90 wrote: post #164
Waterluvian wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing this about your grandfather. > The world changes and sometimes it sucks but that is how progress is made. This touches on something I think a lot about. Massive driverless farms, in my mind's eye, looks like one puzzle piece towards the utopia of the future. But you do lose the human aspect. It reminds me of Star Trek where Picard is working with his hands on a vineyard. Capitalism is abolished so…

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…

Automated farms won’t be cheap. If it replaces hard manual labour, it will be replacing dirt cheap manual labour. No savings there.

Small farm automation is an urgent need. No one is doing it. Maybe in Europe.

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

#407

Post by jelliclesfarm »

nkurz wrote: post #391
bigjimmyk3 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was fascinated to hear a recent news story about how this works. The US has a long history of subsidizing its dairy industry (not unlike other countries) and part of that has been a "price floor" on milk. This floor applies to retailers purchasing milk from producers / distributors, but if the retailer also owns the producer... there's no retail price floor. Hence, the fairly extreme price difference between a regi…

Milk pricing is complicated, and I don't really understand it, but I don't think your comment is correct. There exists a "price floor" on a national level that establishes a minimum price that is payed to producers. This price differs based on location, which acts as a proxy for price of production. But I'm pretty sure there is no mandated federal minimum retail price, although some individual states (Maine, Californ…

Dairy is an abusive industry in the United States and heavily subsidized. It costs more per gallon than the sale price per gallon. Dairy farms are dying. The mid west is thrilled about hemp farms..it’s expected to save a lot of farms. Until it doesn’t. But that’s another discussion re hemp.

The people who make money on dairy farms are the ones who chemical companies and pharmaceutical companies. The cost of raising milch cows eats away at margins. Dairy farmers survive because of subsidies until they have to keep producing more and more ..they stretch and stretch and then they collapse. Tragic.

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

#408

Post by jelliclesfarm »

ahoy wrote: post #260
cpach wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are those profitable though? Farming is heavily subsidized by the EU.

US agriculture is also heavily subsidized

Only commodity crops and those listed on Wall Street/stock exchange.

Not the food and vegetables and fruits we consume. Hogs and corn and sugar beets and canola and soy are subsidized.

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

#409

Post by jelliclesfarm »

chad_oliver wrote: post #302
dredmorbius wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farming is heavily subsidised throughout the industrialised world.

Farming in New Zealand is not subsidized, and I believe the same is true of Australia. It's possible to compete on the open market and succeed.

NZ used to have subsidies but they got rid of it. Good for them. Fonterra is their big co-op. But with Chinese investment/ownership, most of it is going towards milk powder for export. They posted a loss for the first time last year. Canada has subsidies but different from American. They use a system called Supply Management. They make smaller family farms work better and will survive unlike American dairy. We have more CAFOs and factory farms that are not ecologically and environmentally sustainable in the long run. It’s a mess.

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

#410

Post by lucb1e »

romwell wrote: post #338
dejv wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That it's possible doesn't meant they built them. Maybe the units that came with AC also started coming with DRM.
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