News

Take inventory of extra metal

An online equipment auction specialist recommends taking stock of unused equipment to find additional funds on the farm.

President of Big Iron Auctions Mark Stock tells Brownfield farmers often have more saleable equipment than they think.

“There was a survey done several years back that the typical farmer had $175,000 of machinery in their operation that wasn’t used in the two previous seasons and sometimes when you have a little bit of a tougher year, maybe you could sell some of that.”

Stock says there’s also some seasonality to equipment sales.

“Planters are up and you’re wondering why.  A lot of people want to have two planters because they got caught last year with too many acres to go and then the weather moved in.  If they would have had one more tractor and one more planter, they could have doubled up their production time.”

 He says from now till the middle of April is one of the best times for equipment sales because most fieldwork is done and there might be some extra dollars to spend before tax season.