Auction

A Silent Truth Hidden in the Farm Economy: Farmer Suicides Are on the Rise

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 13:51:10 GMT

Signs of stress in the farm economy are everywhere you turn, and with corn futures hitting fresh lows again this week, crumbling commodity prices are painting a dreary outlook for 2025, and the financial pressures are causing another bleak reality: farmer suicides are also on the rise.

In 2024, used equipment prices were plummeting at auction, with values of larger horsepower tractors dropping more than 20% . As used equipment flooded the auction market, Alex Kerr, owner of Kerr Auction and Kerr Equipment , noticed another troubling trend.

“This is really odd for me,” Kerr said in a video he posted to social media last year. “Three tractors up here that I bought on auction, and I’m not going to tell you which ones, but they came off of suicide — the reason is that the farmers are no longer here. It’s the reason I’ve got the tractors.”

Kerr noticed the silent truth happening in the midst of the current downturn in the farm economy, which was the fact he was seeing an uptick in the amount of equipment coming to auction as a result of farmer suicide.

“If anybody needs to talk, call your friends, call us. We don’t need to sell you anything. I don’t want to buy more tractors this way,” Kerr went on to say in the video.

Kerr says he typically doesn’t know all the stories behind the tractors he sells, especially if it’s a consignment auction. As an auction company and used equipment dealer, his focus is on the numbers. But at this particular auction, he was compelled to do something.

“I noticed at one point after I had bought some stuff, and I had it all sitting on my lot together advertised for sale. I’m lining this stuff up, and it just kind of hit me. I’m like, ‘What happened to these guys to get them to a point they wanted to do that rather than continue on?’ I’m lining up those tractors, and I thought about it for a while and turned around and made the video,” Kerr says.

While there aren’t any stats on the exact number of farmer suicides happening across the U.S ., according to a CDC study published in January 2020, farmers are among the most likely to die by suicide, in comparison to other occupations. And with 259 farm bankruptcies filed between April 2024 and March 2025, it’s clear the financial stress on farms is only growing more severe this year.

“In most cases, if it’s a financial problem, the stereotypical answer people will tell you is, ‘Oh, keep your head up. It’ll get better.’ Well, if its a financial thing, the odds are it’s not going to get better. If you just keep digging the same hole, it only gets worse. So, you need to stop and make changes in your life or your business,” Kerr says.

Kerr’s video ultimately reached Bridgette Readel , a retired agronomist who is bringing more awareness to mental health among farmers through her social media following on X (formerly Twitter).

“To be honest, I got Alex’s video sent to me by a mutual friend — a farmer from Wisconsin. Alex had listened to one of the Twitter chats that I do on Fridays and heard the discussion which had been about farmer suicide, depression and anxiety,” Readel says. “Alex never wanted to step in front of the limelight, but he could see a trend, particularly in the geography where he works. And he wanted to do something just to raise a little bit of awareness.”

She says Kerr’s video struck a chord because not only was it bringing awareness to a topic not often discussed, but other farmers could relate to it.

“So many folks could recognize themselves in it: ‘That’s my same tractor’ or ‘I have thought about these very same thoughts or problems. How do I get away from them?’” Readel says. “For those who are closer to my age and remember what the ‘80s were like, there were a lot of farm ‘accidents’ that weren’t accidents. And now it’s a fear of what if myself, my neighbor, my brother, my sister or someone else is that next person?”

Agriculture is full of doers. If farmers see a problem, they immediately want to fix it. But when it comes to mental health, it’s not an easy fix — and not one that can be resolved on your own.

That’s why Readel says there’s one main message farmers need to hear right now: it’s okay to not be okay, but you have to ask for help.

“My message to farmers is to remember that you’re not alone, and when you see something with one of your friends or neighbors, ask them. Don’t be afraid. You don’t have to be a professional at it. You can help them find a professional, but sometimes it’s as simple as sitting in the buddy seat and asking how they’re doing. They might not answer you the first time, so ask it the second time,” she says.

As AgWeb reported in 2024, it’s important the friends, family, and business professionals close to farmers are prepared and able to effectively communicate in a mental health crisis. You can read more in this story, Your Mental Health Toolbox: How To Recognize The Warning Signs.

In the U.S., you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor.

Machinery Pete: 2 Trends Shaping the Used Sprayer Market

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 19:01:11 GMT

I’m trying hard not to be the grumpy, old guy, but I’m growing weary of our constant shouting at each other and everyone thinking their way is the only way. Opinions are free, but today everyone has a 24/7 megaphone at their disposal. Social media’s twisted algorithms amplify the harsh, argumentative posts, and it’s become so tiring. One of the cornerstone truths we were taught as kids in rural America: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

The problem is people think things should be simple, with the right answer in black and white, but the truth often lies in shades of gray. Take the current used self-propelled sprayer market for example. There isn’t one short sound byte statement that can synopsize this market.

There are two trends that have been happening at the same time you should be aware of:

Increasing price pressure on very late model, used sprayers with softening auction prices
Strong buyer demand for good condition sprayers over 10 years old

Softening Late Model Values

Proof of the first trend came last December at a farm auction in Bible Grove, Ill., as we filmed our “Machinery Pete” TV show. A 2022 Hagie STS12 sprayer with 182 hours sold for $428,000. It’s true — that is the second highest auction price ever on an STS12, but it’s also true that nine months prior, on a March 2024 online auction in Hamilton, Ill., another 2022 model STS12 sold with triple the hours (549) for $480,500.

Strong Buyer Demand For Good Condition Units Over 10 Years Old

Seven weeks later, I was in Seven Springs, N.C., filming another farm auction for the TV show. The hottest item there was a 2013 John Deere 4730 sprayer with 3,334 hours. It was very sharp and sold for $104,000. That’s the third highest auction price ever on a 4730 that had more than 3,000 hours (the highest price was just $1,000 more).

Another example was the 2014 Miller Nitro 5240 with 825 hours that sold for $270,000 at a Dec. 30, 2024 farm auction in Mendon, Mich., — the highest ever auction price on a Miller Nitro.

Your Next Read: Here’s Why 2025 Is The Time To Buy High-Horsepower Tractors, Auction Pricing Is Staying Strong

Used Sprayers in 2025: Buyer’s Paradise or Just The Beginning?

Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:34:26 GMT

The used sprayer market is shaping up to be a buyer’s market. That’s due to an oversupply in the market, and dealers are hauling a lot of late-model machines down to auctions to free up lot space.

On the flip side, strong buyer demand for older sprayers (10+ years) in good condition and a shortage of brand-new machines is holding those decade old machines rock solid on price, or even driving prices above what some would consider market value.

“2025 is looking like a pretty good time to look for that three-, four-, or five-year-old sprayer, to try and get ahead of the market before it flips and everyone wants to buy a new one (in 2026),” Greg “Machinery Pete” Peterson said. “You don’t want to buy when everyone else is buying. When any market becomes about availability, pricing goes right out the window.”

Moving Iron host Casey Seymour, who has almost 20 years of experience in the ag equipment industry, specifically tracking used equipment trends at the dealership level, agreed.

“The only thing that’s going to be out there to buy right now is going to be that late-model, low hour machine and I think we’re going to see a great opportunity for a big run on used equipment here in the last quarter of the year and going into 2026,” Seymour said.

Sprayer Segment Activity and Retrofit Options
Matt Raasch, AgriVision Equipment, says December was an average month for used equipment buying and selling activity, and January saw more action than normal. February did start out slowly, but he chalks that up to some of the poor weather across the Midwest.

“As I talk to other dealers, I’d say sprayers is probably the one category that comes up the most as far as level of concern, just with the number of units out there, and that inventory just continues to grow,” Raasch says. “The other thing I’m watching is the model mix, that used to be where we were pretty scattered as far as models and size of booms, and now everyone has the 120’ booms.”

In the retrofit segment, technologies such as John Deere’s See & Spray are moving the needle and seeing good uptake from farmers and custom applicators alike. That’s because farmers in general are more open to sprayer technology upgrades.

“They’re received better than planter, (upgrades),” says used equipment specialist Aaron Fintel. “On a planter you have virtually an entire new machine, and on a sprayer, you’re doing the, to use a bad term, the fancy stuff, the precision (ag) – it’s that next page for your farm.”

Commodities Update
Knowing the commodity market influences machinery movement, Rich Posson with Ag Financial joined the podcast to talk about where commodity prices are headed.

Posson says the markets started off slowly, but things are starting to wake up heading into spring planting.

“If you have strong prices from fall harvest into the next year’s growing season, and then you get a crop problem, that’s your larger, better bull market,” Posson says. “If you looked at it last year it was down, but this year it’s trending higher, it’s working. All that tells us is there’s even more upside (in the markets) if we do get that crop problem. The market has a good demand situation going for it.”

Posson is comfortable predicting corn, soybeans and wheat will see price increases later this summer. The trade situation with China isn’t something to worry about with corn and wheat exports because strong demand from South America and other export markets such as England and Japan can close that gap. China pulling back its purchases does have potential to negatively influence the soybean markets, he adds.

“I’m going to go a bit optimistic on China, they’re going to be OK,” Posson says. “But the rest boils down to, as far as our exports, the trade wars.”

WATCH THE FULL EPISODE OF MOVING IRON

NAICC's Third Annual Equipment Auction Is Open

Mon, 04 Nov 2024 20:52:50 GMT

NAICC is hosting its fall equipment auction now through Friday, Nov. 22 to benefit members.

The auction is fully online and bidding is open to ag researchers and the crop consulting community. Previous sales have seen both large and small equipment such as:

Smith NL400 Backpack Sprayer
Almaco Seed Sorter
Almaco Push Planter - 1 Row Crop Seeder
1948 Farmall M Tractor
2000 Spray Tech Shrouded Sprayer
1993 Polaris Sportsman Quad 500cc
2014 SRES Adjustable 4- row Planter
1988 ALMACO SPC20 Base Combine
2008 Wintersteiger Classic Plot Combine
2014 Kincaid 8-XP 2 Row Research Plot Combine

Sellers’ fees are based on determined value. Buyers’ fees range from 4.8% (with a minimum of $1,250) to 12% (up to $10,000). There is a cap of $1,500 for items priced over $30,001.

Lot fees are $25, and sellers have the option to place a reserve on an item. Consignments will be accepted until November 19.

To enter a consignment, email NAICCAuctions@naicc.org. To bid, visit www.naicchibid.com .

A New Era: The Ag Equipment Industry's Sugar High Is Over

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 18:36:04 GMT

One of my first story assignments as an agricultural journalist was covering a liquidation auction of repossessed farm machinery in Columbia, Missouri.

It was late summer 1985, and the 1980s farm crisis was at its zenith. I can still envision the endless row of used corn heads across the length of the fairgrounds. In total, 174 pieces of agricultural equipment hit the auction block that day.

This was certainly not the “feel-good” story I had envisioned to start my journalistic journey in the field of agriculture, but I learned about our industry’s fragility.

Fast forward to today, and I’m reading a story by Bloomberg news that proclaimed used equipment, not new technology, was this year’s star of the Farm Progress Show. The article highlighted that BigIron Auctions, a provider of used farm machinery and one of the show’s exhibitors, had its biggest-ever offering. Although this may be good news for the auction company, it is likely a prophecy of bad news to come for the rest of the industry.

You may ask, how bad? When agricultural equipment manufacturers start shedding union line workers, shuttering plants and shifting factories to Mexico, and there’s a glut of used equipment covering dealer lots, you know the tide is quickly turning.

What Goes Up Comes Down
Many of us have observed farm economic cycles. This time, despite the sharp rise in input costs, commodity prices more than kept pace, and ultimately, net farm income tallied $182 billion in 2022. Those good times are in the rearview mirror, though. For 2024, projected net farm income drops to $140 billion.

Not surprisingly, farmers bought fresh paint during the boom period. U.S. farm equipment manufacturers and machinery dealers recorded some of their best sales in more than a decade in 2021, and strong sales continued through most of 2023. Although sales of new small- and medium-sized tractors peaked in 2021, sales of bigger horsepower tractors and combines held their own—until early this year.

The Party’s Over
This most recent sugar high for the ag equipment industry was foiled by high inflation, high interest rates and falling crop prices. New machinery prices ramped up 30% on average in the past four years. In 2020, the average price of a new tractor was $363,000. In 2023, it skyrocketed to $491,800.

Since March 2022, the Federal Reserve has raised the interest rate 11 times to curb inflation. So not only does that fresh paint cost at least 30% more, but also the money borrowed to purchase capital items is 161% higher. Now with commodity prices falling faster than either interest rates or equipment prices, this boom time hayride is over.

The Fallout
The Association of Equipment Manufacturers says June 2024 sales of new two-wheel drive tractors were down 16.3% versus 2023. Combine sales were down 31%.

Farm Journal’s machinery analyst Greg Peterson, who leads the popular online platform Machinery Pete, says BigIron Auctions’ expanded presence at Farm Progress is a sign dealers are trying to get ahead of the train. He notes the night-and-day difference in the OEM-dealer response to this downturn compared to the previous one in 2014 to 2015. This time around, dealers have been aggressively paring down large late-model used inventory. In the first eight months of 2024, the market saw a 450% increase in the raw number of one- to two-year-old equipment units taken to auction compared with ’14 and ’15.

Peterson projects used equipment values will continue to deteriorate in the short term. However, the change in those values may not rival the percentage drops seen in the previous down market. Why? Online bidding.

It is a market force that was in its infancy a decade ago. Machinery auctions used to be a local affair. Now, they are regionalized, perhaps nationalized. Even 65-year-old-plus farmers are bidding on tractors being sold eight states away.

Despite the unprecedented number of large late-model used equipment transactions, Peterson points to a potential silver lining in seeing such a quick spike. The sooner the glut of inventory turns, the sooner the equipment industry will return to brighter times. How quickly this happens is going to depend on a lot of things, so it may be prudent to nudge the market in the right direction.

Craving Certainty
With the politics of this election behind us, there’s a lot that could be done to give the marketplace more certainty. I made a “to-do list” for our newly elected officials to follow to address this issue.

Pass a new farm bill. This is the roadmap for everything from conservation programs to public food policy. Get it done!
Make the expanded Section 179 and bonus depreciation incentives permanent. Incentives from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 are winding down or expiring. U.S. ag manufacturers don’t need less incentive for customers to buy.
Pause new EPA and climate change regulations. Saddling manufacturers with more regulations in a crisis is simply not smart.
Do not raise corporate or personal tax rates. Raising taxes domestically only gives U.S. manufacturers another reason to relocate more factories and jobs out of this country. Maybe it’s time Washington, D.C., starts viewing U.S. agricultural manufacturing to be as important as producing semiconductor chips domestically. If semiconductor chip production is that critical to our national security, then I would argue food security ranks right up there.

According to market analysts, we will be at the bottom of this rollercoaster ride for the next year or so. The good news is that long-term, all signs point to a very healthy recovery of agricultural manufacturing by the end of the decade. As robotics, AI and information systems become increasingly integrated, the U.S. ag machinery sector is poised to grow from $39.56 billion this year to $53.7 billion in 2029.

Of course, hitting such numbers depends on how rough the road is financially between now and then. All I know is we do not need history repeating itself. The last thing I want is to have one of the last stories of my journalistic career mimic the heartbreaking one I started with nearly 40 years ago.