Comment by thelastgallon
17 hours ago
Most land holdings are very very small. 1 acre to 5 acres maybe the vast majority. These are all odd sized and shaped and most likely doing different crops based on water availability. To leverage the benefits of mechanization, we need larger land holdings. The farmers have no other ability or income sources, so they hang on it it. Electricity is free. There is no income tax on farming. Govts provide many incentives to get farmers votes. Each state does different things, but they end up copying each others schemes and it gets worse and worse.
Farmers in most regions are no longer poor. Land prices exploded 100 - 500x in a 100 - 150 km diameter around metro areas. Most farmers are now millionaires, yes millionaires in USD. They held on to their land because they didn't know better, the land was useless (no water) and nobody bought it. Now they are going to HODL.
There are mechanization instruments suitable for 5 acre plots, but manufacturers are limited and the potential gains are smaller. Its the same problem as small cheap consumer cars, big investors and capitalists don't want to put money into high volume low margin business with limited market cap. And without mass production costs are significantly higher. Thats why people still maintain 70 year old farmalls and planters and shit spreaders and plows, modern replacements are either crap to be cheap or expensive from low volume.