New Paint: A Look at Combine and Tractor Ownership Trends

It’s no secret that the recent agricultural boom has fueled producer’s interest and financial ability to upgrade equipment lines. A simple drive across the countryside makes it easy to observe that producers have been plowing some of their recent profits into new equipment.*  As agricultural profitability recedes many people expect equipment sales to fall dramatically.

Anecdotally we know about the trend toward newer equipment, but in order to confirm or reject our own notions we decided to take a look at the data and get a better idea of just how many new tractors and combines are out there.   To answer these questions, the 1997, 2002, 2007, and 2012 USDA Censuses of Agriculture were investigated.

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