The Rural Voice, 1981-06, Page 27VOICE OF A FARMER
Ego trips
BY ADRIAN VOS
How many farmers are trying to keep up with the Joneses
probably will never be known.
I don't just mean those who want to drive a more luxurious car
than their friends and neighbours. 1 am
talking about the farmers who buy a larger
tractor than they need for the acreage they
have, just because their neighbour or a
friend owns one.
How often have we heard, particularly the
younger farmers, boasting to each other
about the size of their machinery? Mind,
they seldom mention the cost, or the size of
the loan it took to keep up appearances.
Even non -farmers have noted how a huge
150 hp tractor is sometimes used to pull a
tiny implement or a fertilizer spreader which
could be done by a tractor half its size.
How many farmers have gone broke because of machinery
sitting in the shed for most of the year because they don't have
work for it? In many cases the interest alone would easily pay a
custom operator to do the work.
Before investing the capital required today in new machinery,
every farmer can use the computer facilities at the U. of Guelph,
through the OMAF office, to find out if that investment will pay.
Too often an enthusiastic farmer forgets that equipment is a
cost factor. Crops and livestock return a profit, but all equipment
and land to produce those crops and livestock is an expense. If
kept to the minimum, the return to the farm will be at its
maximum.
There are other expenses inherent in large equipment which
are less apparent. Large machinery causes more compaction
than smaller, lighter equipment.
The modern 4 -wheel drive tractors that enable the farmer to
get on his land weeks earlier than with the conventional
rear -wheel drive tractors, also cause much more compaction than
necessary. Imagine a tractor pulling equipment through the low,
muddy places every field has. The soil just below the surface will
get cemend hard.
1 don't have to spell out that compaction decreases yield:
sometimes dramatically.
On top of this, two 60 hp tractors will cost less to buy than one
120 hp tractor.
The only saving lies in time saved because the big boys can go
at least twice as fast with only one operator. If that time saving is
worth the yield loss depends primarily on the land to be worked.
If it is high, dry land it may possibly be worth it, but for the
average southern Ontario farmer, and in particular the family
farmer who uses mainly family labour or casual help, a
consultation with the computer people could produce some
surprises.
Many of the commercials by actors with deep, manly voices,
with heavy emphasis on bigness instead of economics, may be
meaningful in the Canadian and American west where the
acreage required is many times ours to produce the same yields.
But here in Ontario, where the soil is rich, and the yields are
high, and compaction is becoming more worrisome year after
year, and where bankruptcies are the highest in all of Canada, a
farmer must ask himself if he can afford unnecessary bigness.
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THE RURAL VOICE/JUNE 1981 PG. 25