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The Rural Voice, 1990-11, Page 22KPONTJNO ©MARIO FARR' NACHIERY IIHUO U060 by Jim Fitzgerald When Dennis Nuhn decided to play the part of the proverbial little David taking on the giant Goliath, like his counterpart in the Bible he found the enemy was not that big and awesome after all. Nuhn owns Nuhn Industries, a small agricultural equipment manufacturer based in Sebringville in the heart of Perth County. His company is part of a growing number of small manufacturers based in mid- western Ontario who are building and exporting their products — mostly agriculturally related machinery — into the huge and highly competitive United States market. In fact, Nuhn has been exporting his line — an innovative liquid manure spreader — for three years now and is optimistic his American sales, now about 10 per cent of his total, have nowhere to go but up. He currently employs about a dozen people building the $8,000 to $15,000 spreaders in his Highway 8 plant. "Once you get over the psychological block of the invisible border, there are a lot of potential customers out there," says Nuhn. "Too many Canadian manufacturers seem to think more easily 400 miles east and west of their plants than the 100 miles into the States." Other small manufacturers The Rural Voice talked to in separate interviews echoed Nuhn's sentiments on exporting farm equipment into what looks like an impenetrable market controlled by huge multinational machinery giants like John Deere, Case IH, and Ford -New Holland. There has been free trade in machinery between Canada and the U.S. for a large part of this century, with most of our major farm implements — such as tractors and combines — manufactured south of the border or in Europe. In 1986, the Dennis Nulin: "Once you get over the psychological block of the invisible border, there are a lot of potential customers out there." last year that Statistics Canada took a comprehensive survey, Canada was running a massive deficit in farm machinery, with nearly $2 billion crossing the border into Canada, while the Canucks only shipped out $500 million. It's true that the farm machinery business looks like a one-way street running from the U.S. into Canada, particularly in the past decade with the disappearance of several of the Canadian stalwarts like Massey, and White. Being small has a distinct advantage, since there are some niche markets that a smaller Canadian manufacturer can easily capitalize on with a little bit of work. Casey Van Eyl, of Van Eyl Equipment of Clifford, has been in and out of the U.S. market for nearly a dozen years. He had been exporting some years ago, got out of it because of ill -health and was lured back by the provincial and federal governments, who talked him into going on a couple of trade missions this summer to the states of New York and Pennsylvania. Now his small shop of seven employees is working on an order for six dump trailers for the American market. "You have to specialize in 1 or 2 products and target a the market that the Americans aren't making them- selves," says Van Eyl of his unique trailer which he developed from an idea suggested by a local farmer. Bob Hagedorn, of N.E. Hagedorn in Paisley, agrees, saying "it's too far and too competitive to go down there with small items. You have to have higher -priced specialized items." Hagedorn is just getting his toes wet in the U.S. market with a line of new hydraulic manure spreaders that will sell in the $6,950 to $10,000 price range. "There seems to be a shortage of small manufacturers in the U.S.," says Hagedorn, who employs between 10 and 20 people. 18 THE RURAL VOICE