One of the nice things about standing in the long food concession lines at the National Farm Machinery Show last week is I got to meet some pretty interesting people. In my case, I visited with some farmers attending the show. One thing about farmers is they love to visit.

So, as I was standing in line to get a “giant pork tenderloin” sandwich, I asked one farmer what he thought of the show. He said it was the first time he had ever attended this particular show. As it turned out, he was from South Carolina.

I asked why he decided to come up this year. Without hesitation he replied, “I got some money to spend and want to see what’s new.”

Another farmer from Georgia pretty much echoed these same sentiments. He and five other farmers had driven up together to go to the Louisville show. He said he hadn’t been to the NFMS in many years and didn’t realize how big it had grown.

Like the farmer from South Carolina, he and his friends were there to see what was new and “maybe spend some money.”

From my experience, when farmers are happy, everyone else around them is as well, including dealers and manufacturers. It’s nice to see everyone happy.

Earlier in the year at the National No-Tillage Conference in St. Louis, No-Till Farmer, a sister publication of Farm Equipment, polled the 800-plus attendees about their spending plans for 2012. The results showed that no-tillers expect to increase their spending by 9% in 2012.

Unfortunately, it appears that most of the increase in spending for this year will go for the higher costs of chemicals, seeds, fertilizers, etc. They say their investment in equipment, parts and service will probably be lower than it was in 2011, but not by much. Below are the results of the survey.

I don’t know about you, but I just haven’t seen or heard anything to indicate that 2012 will be anything but good for agriculture.

No-Tillers Expect to Increase Spending By 9% In 2012

Category 2011 2012 Seed $ 69,459 $ 87,773 Chemicals  $ 55,522 $ 65,260 Fertilizer $110,122 $131,517 Equipment $111,144 $ 99,017 Machinery/service $ 31,287 $ 29,734 Machinery/parts $ 20,760 $ 20,753

— Survey of 2012 National No-Tillage Conference attendees