Plowing match showcases hefty machines, price tags
While you might see horse-drawn plowing competitions at the International Plowing Match & Rural Expo this week, the equipment used on modern farms has gotten bigger — and more expensive.
According to Harvey Handsor, a director with the Kent Federation of Agriculture, a mediumsized tractor costs about $200,000, but the larger items can exceed $500,000. A combine is also about $500,000, while corn heads and grain heads can put farmers back about $100,000, he said. “There’s nothing really cheap, I guess,” said Handsor, who farms in Dover Township, not far from the site of the event in the ChathamKent community of Pain Court. “It has to do with currency and actually there’s been quite a price increase with steel.”
Some farmers may not keep up with all of the latest equipment, he said, but new features released within the last 20 years can help improve efficiency. The “biggest change” is GPS technology, which allows the machinery to drive itself and can map out where a farmer has planted their crop or made changes to their soil, he said. “It allows the person to work later at night,” said Handsor. “When something is driving itself, it’s easier to put in longer hours, which a lot of guys do. Since I started farming, 42 years ago, it’s changed a lot.” Several farm equipment dealers have carved out pieces of the Plowing Match site to show off the latest equipment from the major brands. Bill Henderson, a part-owner with McGrail Farm Equipment based out of Chatham, said the smallest John Deere tractor he had at the event would cost $40,000. Others cost $50,000, $75,000 and the largest are around $500,000. “You don’t have to buy that kind,” he said. “All kinds of sizes fit everybody’s needs.” Ironically, while the International Plowing Match celebrates plowing, some of it with horses, the modern tractor had already been introduced into Kent County during the First World War — several years before the International Plowing Match was first held in the county in 1919. The gasoline-powered tractor made its first local appearance on the Harwich Township farm of Reginald Delmer Snobelen in October 1916. His tractor was a 1915 Case 10-20 four-cylinder model. The International Plowing Match continues through Saturday.