What if there came a time when it was no longer economically feasible to grow corn in Iowa? I know this is crazy talk and the possibility of such a scenario is about as far fetched as getting an atheist to join you at an evangelical revival meeting.

In the fourth of Farm Equipment’s every-other-year Dealership Minds series, six editors travelled to central California to experience first-hand how a successful dealership — Kern Machinery — operates in a market where agriculture can only be described as “diverse,” “intensive” and “rapidly changing.” It wasn’t that long ago when cotton, potatoes and hay dominated the landscape. Today, vegetables, fruit, grapes and nuts are taking over.

Marty Buck, the CFO for Kern Machinery and the other Camp family entities (based in Bakersfield, Calif.), explained to Farm Equipment some of the differences in financial management responsibilities as dealerships grow in scale. He joined Kern 7 years ago, after previously leading financial departments at Unisys and Bolthouse Farms.

While Don Zajac, service manager for Kern Machinery’s Buttonwillow, Calif., store, and James Boel, service manager at Kern Machinery’s Delano, Calif., store, have different levels of experience with the dealership and slightly different responsibilities, they both run their service departments with the same principle. No 2 days are the same for the pair and even under the best-laid plans, circumstances and schedules change.

In over 30 years of working in the parts department at Kern Machinery, Chris Schott has seen a lot of changes. When he first started, a 24-hour turnaround on getting a part was amazing. “That’s not good enough any more. There are thousands and thousands of dollars on the line, so 24 hours is too long,” he says. “That creates the need for more inventory because customers want solutions and they want to be rolling now. If they have a piece of equipment down, they may have 3 pieces that operate behind it that can’t operate because the other one’s down. Well that adds up to big money fast. Downtime is a big thing for our customers and they’re under a lot more pressure.”

Clayton Camp didn’t plan on leading a multi-store dealership group. As a crop science major at Cal-Poly, he expected to spend his career on the family farm.

Over the years, more than a few dealers have told me the best deals they ever made were often the deals they didn’t make. At least a few industry pundits believe this is the case for Monsanto in its failed bid to acquire Syngenta.