It's coming

Extracted from the Farm Tender weekly Newsletter - Sign up and get the email every Wednesday morning before 6 am. www.farmtender.com.au

By Dwain Duxson.

If you have been reading this little piece for a while, you would know that mostly we focus on the positive things in Ag.

I was on a webinar last night doing a little bit of research about the new Machinery market, which is a little bit broken right now.

Pete McCann, the MD or Case IH Australia, was one of the presenters, and he said Farmers wanting new Machinery will be able to get what they want, but they will just have to wait.

So what is causing these delays we are all hearing about?

Pete said there were many factors. A shortage of Tyres is one. Apparently, it takes 10 years to grow a rubber tree to full maturity, and there was a shortage of plantings 10 years ago, which is affecting the Tyre market (and rubber market in general) right now. Chips, there are some 130 chips in a 150hp Case Tractor, and the worldwide shortage is having an effect. Toyota has had to close down some shifts because of the chip issue worldwide.

Steel prices have gone through the roof. Someone told me scrap steel is $400 a tonne.

General demand for new Machinery and Equipment worldwide is at a record high, with Agriculture strong in many other countries, not only here.

Then the whole shipping and freight industry is at a bottleneck. Something like 10 percent of the Shipping fleet worldwide is stuck, unable to get unloaded in the normal timeframes. These are delays on top of what is already currently getting unloaded.

Then when these ships with all these Tractors, Headers and Sprayers enter Australian waters, another set of issues arrises.

You might have heard about a load of new Machines destined for WA that had to divert to Melbourne, unload, then be freighted back to WA by road because the people at the docs went on strike.

Pete said the shortage of staff is playing a role. It's all drive on, drive off gear, so they need people to jump on these ships and drive the big gear off. Also, the shortage of truck drivers to deliver to the dealership is playing a part.

So, you could say the whole supply chain for new Machinery and Equipment is not its normal self.

Petes advice for someone wanting a specific new piece of kit was to order as soon as possible, and you might get delivery within about 12 months. He said the timeline is frustrating, but you will get what you want. You will just need to wait.

When is all this going to fix itself? Nobody knows that answer.

I went to buy a new Ute the other day and the wait time was March 2022 for a couple of brands I was interested in, so I bought a second hand one.

Planning ahead for Farmers has never been more important than now.

End of message.