Do farmers rent or hire machinery and if so what happens if it rains a lot on the week they should collect the

Question

harvester do they still have to have the machine as pre ordered?i say not hubby says yes cos they are pre booked months in advance?????

Answer 1

I read a couple of bad answers on here.  Here's the lowdown.

When it comes to farming, consider farmers to be independent businessmen.  The number and kinds of arrangements that can be made, and are made, are practically limitless.  It's very likely that you could both be right when considering some scenarios.

Most farmers own their own equipment, either all of it or most of it.  Most farmers own some of the acres they farm and rent more acres.  Most farmers work one full time job and farm as many acres as they can manage as a second job, but there are a lot of full-time farmers as well, although most of them have the financial resources to be farming over 1000 acres.  There are gobs of exceptions to everything I just wrote.

I have a friend, for example, who farms about 200 acres.  He worked in the medical field until he retired a few months ago.  He owns a couple of tractors and all of his other equipment except the combine (harvester).  That's a common approach, because a combine is in most cases the most expensive piece of equipment a farmer can have, and it's only used for harvest.  What he does is contract with other farmers to harvest his crops for him, and of course pays them for this service.  This is the most common approach, to contract with other farmers for them to harvest your grain (or hay or whatever) as well.  There is no calendar date that the harvest is contracted to take place on, but the harvesting is booked for months in advance, usually.  A farmer can indeed rent a piece of equiment, but that is much less common than having the service hired out for someone else to come in and do it for you.  Renting equipment is expensive, you have to deal with unfamiliar and possibly defective equipment, you really have problems locating exactly they equipment you need and when you need it, then there is insurance and damages, and etc.  It's a real hassle, so most farmers just bypass that and hire in a neighboring farmer to do the harvesting for him.

     There are guys that have companies that all they do is harvest.   Those outfits are usually multimillion-dollar operations which own several combines and tractor-trailer rigs, and all they do is harvest for farmers for hire.  They'll usually start in the wheat fields in Texas and harvest their way north all the way into Canada, and when they're done with that change heads on the combines and start in with soybeans and corn.

      Anyway, there are probably some weird arrangements out there where you are both right.  But usually, the way it's done is how I have described.  When you hire the harvesting, you're usually not booking a date since it's so weather-dependent, you're booking the service for the season, and the contractor fits it in as best he can.  You can imagine that that can create some arguments, and it most assuredly does.  That's one reason farmers like to own all their own equipment, because it gives them control, but most guys who hire out for harvesting provide a very good and efficient service so that can work pretty well.

Answer 2

Most farmers buy their machinery or lease it like you would a car.  There is no booking harvesters.

Answer 3

machinery - is not booked months in advance as crops ripen differently depending on too hot,  too cold , too much rain

you may have planted for grain but due to weather you can only do silage or you may not have enough crop to bother to run equipment over. ----(silage and high moisture corn would come of first) But you won't know in july you will be ready to harvest October 1 -- if a farmer is going to rent you his equipment or you pay someone to harvest - if it starts raining and they are delayed -you get delayed receiving the machinery (my hires his  boss his combining done - his gets done when the neighbor finishes - if weather delays his own harvest -than he delays doing bosses

Answer 4

Farmers own their own machinery, if not then they would be cash renting, which another farmer farms their land and gives them money in order to do so.