I was curious to see what the price increase has been for combines over the past 3 model changes. I looked through the business system, locating customers who have rolled combines every year, trying to see how pricing has evolved over the last decade. What I found was not all that shocking, but at the same time I have to wonder how long trading the volume of equipment with high used pricing can be sustained. This is not to say a 2018 combine and 2008 combine are the same. The amount of technology and overall improvements in the past 10 years are tremendously vast. So, this goes without saying, R&D cost will be recaptured but with this comes a challenge of its own. When a manufacturer has a price increase, it does affect the used market but not the entire price increase. In the the last 5 years, the rate of price increase recapture has been less than the previous 5 years.

This is an exciting time in the farm equipment business. There is a generational paradigm shift happening both with ag equipment dealers and the producers. Retiring producers and those that have gone out of business have left the door open to expansion. Across North America, the demand for technology, specialized product knowledge, and the decreasing number of producers has led to greater dealership consolidation. In order to create economies of scale, both sides will continue to grow. So what does this mean and how will it effect each other’s business? In my opinion, the next 5 years will have such a dramatic change the industry will be unrecognizable.