Ag Equipment Industry Hurt By A Lack Of A Farm Bill

Farmers are not the only ones suffering from low commodity prices and a languishing farm bill. The Ag equipment industry is also taking a hit, which has some on Capitol Hill worried.  John Deere and Precision Planting and Ziegler Ag are all reducing their workforce or closing plants.  In Washington D.C. this week, farmer and Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley said the reason for the hit is fairly obvious.

“You can’t expect farmers to buy a lot of new equipment when corn is losing 50 or 60 dollars an acre. Some people are suggesting, maybe even a hundred dollars an acre. You just don’t have the income to buy this stuff.”

So, Grassley says Ag equipment makers are looking at history.

“All of these agriculture manufacturers know that they don’t want to make mistakes as they did in the 1980s and keep manufacturing and manufacturing and manufacturing when land prices are going down and farmers aren’t making any money from their crops.”

Grassley said a new farm bill isn’t a ‘magic wand,’ but it sure would help.

“It wouldn’t improve these prices overnight, but it’s the uncertainty of not having a farm bill, a five-year farm bill, that I think has made this (these) layoffs of workers in the agricultural manufacturing even worse than it would otherwise be.” 

All this as USDA forecasts a 25% or more drop in farm income this year.

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