I think that Kraft-T is right - We are dodgeing the question asked - shortage of help -- not wages .
Here , anyway , we do have a shortage of experenced help , back when I was a young farmer - we ran M's , MTA's 400 's then on up to 806's then 14,66's 1586's , all this equipment was , well pretty easy to run along with only equipemnt that was from 15 foot up to 25 feet , now fast forward to today , 4 wheel drives with 30 40 or 50 foot wide equipment , auto steer . this is just a start , what about drying equipment at the bins and sprayers ?
When I got of college , I worked at a fert plant , My floater truck I got was a 75 Chevy - that is a 1975 Truck - only one year old when I started - what did a 75 Chevy 2 ton truck cost back then ? It had a 1000 gallon tank and 45 foot booms on it with no maping , no auto steer , no nothing , not even foam markers , then move up to today , again , My Hagie listed out for 300 + thousand , Now , Who is Ken going to put in a machine like this with no back ground ? We or I got back ground from working on our own farm , There just are not any young farm kids - that if they work on a farm it is probably there dads place and are not looking for a job as farms today are a lot bigger than when I was there age .
Talk about a shortage of help , just look at the fert plants around here - I would guess that the average age would be somewhere around 55 to 60 years of age for app drivers .
HAve a good one !
