[[If there are not enough farmers, so that in a poor production year, they can still meet the demands for food, somone will go hungry. The overproduction is the price we pay for that safety net. If there are several years in a row of good growing conditions, the supply of food will rise, depressing the price. This will drive the farmers who are “on the edge” out of business. Then, sometime down the road, when the conditions are not as good, and we need more land in production, there are not enough farmers to do it, and they don’t have any equipment to work with either, as the manufacturers have to show a profit, also.]]Ivanhoe
OK, now that’s an interesting angle – any official support for that proposition? And is this really likely to be an effective/remotely-needed hedge against starvation in this rather wealthy nation?
[[No, I don’t suppose that it is necessary for you to have direct experience in this, but you shouldn’t assume that the only reason for price supports is to make farmers rich. That is only a secondary goal, the primary reason is to keep my job viable ]]
Why I oughtta … !
I don’t think there will ever be a shortage of equipment. Production of farm equipment will always be there, it is just a matter of where they will sell it. If production shifts more overseas then equip. manufacturers will just change where they sell thier equip… It is allready a global business, many of John Deere’s tractors are currently made in Germany.
I do somewhat worry about land going out of production but the increase in yield per acre, or in my business yield per cow, seems to be offsetting any loss in land or cow quantity. This increase in yield per acre will only increase as more and more genetic and plant engineering ideas are incorporated into agribusiness. I remember a couple years back that China was developing new super strains of rice that were supposed to greatly increase yields, now I’ll have to go see if I can dig up some info. about that.
Yes, JD has a big assembly plant in Mannheim.
Our parts are made in Germany, assembled in the US, then sent to Waterloo. I don’t know for sure if they send assembled axles to Germany for assembly into tractors there or not. Tractors (I think) tend to be larger here in the States, so maybe they send a few of the finished tractors from Waterloo to Europe, and the assembly in Mannheim is for the smaller ones.
I do know that we have direct shipped our German parts back to Germany for service parts!
No, the world farm equipment industry is not likely to collapse, but the present situation is not helping my company much. We have only employed as many as 9 people here in our US division, but now are down to 6. The cutbacks have come almost exclusively in the production area, due to the slowdown at JD.
Ivanhorn, I do think they sell finished tractors back in Europe simply because many of the caution stickers are not only in English but are in German as well. Now the stickers are also more picto-warnings, for example a little stick man wrapped around a PTO shaft etc., kind of funny really.