The Saskatchewan-based shortline manufacturer says it is experiencing reduced demand for its products due to a number of events that have occurred recently in the markets it services.

“My gut feeling is China and the U.S. should really back off on the ag side and concentrate more on the services and this intellectual property,” Rich Posson, an analyst with Ag Financial, tells Casey Seymour of 21st Century Equipment and Moving Iron LLC during a recent interview on Farm Equipment’s Used Equipment Remarketing Roadmaps podcast.

The limited cash available to farmers and ranchers in the U.S. will continue to put a dampener on the equipment markets in 2018 and 2019. The expanded depreciation programs that appeared in 2010 and reached its zenith in 2014 had the effect of pulling ahead purchases from future years. We are now enduring the results of that program.

In this podcast we report on Deere & Co.'s third quarter earnings, which saw net sales increase 32%. In the Technology Corner, Jack Zemlicka discusses precision farming dealers' 5-year investment projections. With uncertainty stemming from tariffs, trade and commodity prices we also look at how manufacturers, dealers and producers are responding. Finally, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, farm income, capital spending and farmland values are all down.

The uncertainty that accompanied the current tariff disputes has produced a black cloud over future tractor and equipment sales. In spite of those concerns we continue to see some strength in the larger tractor categories and in combines this year.

The unknown resulting from the current trade negotiations have had a major impact on the positive feelings that existed just a few months ago. Farmers and ranchers are facing reduced incomes coupled with rising interest rates for their necessary operating capital and that does not produce a bright, cheery outlook.

The sudden increase in combine sales in the months of April and May of this year has created a great deal of head scratching around our office.

Our industry is navigating some very choppy waters as international trade negotiations continue. Uncertainty has created caution in farmers’ spending recently and most likely will continue until there is some resolution to the trade talks now underway.