Tractor shopping ramble

We went tractor shopping a couple of weeks ago at Nash's up in Colebrook, New Hampshire. It was raining wicked hard.

The place smelled like the forklift scrap yard I used to work at in Minnesota. That oily, not entirely unpleasant, smell.

Most vegetable farms on our scale will have at least two tractors: a utility tractor with a bucket loader, and a smaller tractor used to cultivate (weed) crops. Maryellen has a soft spot in her heart for the Farmall Cub which is a classic cultivating tractor. And it is hard to blame her really.

But we both seem to agree that getting a utility tractor is the right move in this first year. We have a couple of good leads on tractors that will work for us. But it is getting to be crunch time -- the ground is warming up!

The funny thing is that United States vegetable industry has consolidated to such a point over the last 30 years that no one is really making tractors for small scale agriculture anymore. Most new tractors are either big rigs for industrial sized farms out in the mid-west and west, or for dairy farms that need more horse power. Then all of a sudden the market shrinks down to the weekend warrior landscape scale tractor. There is a gap in the machinery business where the small family farm used to be.

But organic agriculture is the classic example of a niche market. There is a demographic willing to pay a premium for organic produce, for a variety of reasons ranging from environmental concerns, to taste, to food safety, to supporting smaller farms. And since the market that responds to organics also seems to respond to buying local and buying fresh, smaller scale vegetable farms have been able to carve out a successful market niche in the Northeast.

The problem is that the niche isn't really big enough for John Deere to make a 40-50 horsepower row cropping tractor sized for a 10 acre operation. For example, New Holland made what would be a perfect vegetable tractor for us. But this tractor is too small for the California farmer with 10,000 acres, and it is too expensive for people like us. So New Holland discontinued this tractor this year, after only four years of production. No one was buying.

Instead, organic farmers tend to rely on equipment that was made 40+ years ago, back when there were more small scale family farms, and when farmers used agricultural practices that did not rely so much on chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Not only was older equipment designed for our scale and agricultural methods, but 40 year old equipment is relatively cheap, which is also an advantage. After all, no one but a crazy organic farmer would want an Allis Chamlers G.

Which leads us back to our problem. That 1954 Farmall in the dealer's lot may look great, and it may sound great, and it may actually be in great shape, but then you say to yourself, whoa, that thing is almost 50 years old! Even the Ford 5000 we are thinking about is about 30 years old.

Having said that, they made things to last 50 years ago, and they also made things so that someone like me could figure out how to work on it without a master's degree. So while you need to be a little careful, you should be Ok if you have a full ratchet set when you get the thing home (and, in our case, you also have a local tractor mechanic with a good reputation). Plus, Maryellen knows how to rebuild a diesel engine in her sleep, so we have that going for us.

Anyway, we'll let you know when we find our special machine!