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Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

The overhead of transporting this equipment between farms makes the process significantly less efficient. The difference between harvesting 2,000 acres a day and 1,700 might not seem like a lot, but add in transaction costs and you can be talking 5+% higher food costs ignoring subsidies.

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It's not just that, certain pieces of equipment (combines in particular) are needed at the exact same time in multiple different places, and a delay of a day or even a few hours can be ruinous (if you don't harvest wheat at exactly the right time it can be more or less destroyed by the weather)

How do big farms cope with situations where their equipment is needed in multiple different places at the exact same time?

If you have 20,000 acres and equipment failure means you don’t harvest the last 1,000 acres before a rain that’s a problem. But for smaller farms it’s more binary where either 100% is on time or 0% is. You can bet people are more willing to let the first happen than the second.

If you merge multiple small farms into a single big one, the overhead of transporting this equipment between farms turns into the overhead of transporting this equipment between different parts of the farm. The distance that needs to be covered remains the same. Sure, the hand-off between farmers needs to be scheduled, but is that going to make the difference between 2,000 acres a day and 1,700? Do tractor drivers on big farms never take a break?

Individual farms aren’t simply a single open field. So, you need to physically drive between locations, verify that this is the correct location, enter the correct settings, ensure each farms resources are separate etc.

And which of these steps can be omitted on a big farm? Only "ensure each farms resources are separate", no? Isn't that just an accounting question?

I think you’re underestimating the overhead of talking to people. If your doing something worth X,000$ you want some signatures before and after the fact. Even the possibility of driving to the wrong location is meaningful.

But, it’s also little things like the distance a tractor travels before it needs to turn around. Picture painting a a wall with and without windows using those long rollers. The simpler the shape the faster you can go.

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