New combines now list for $1 million as farm income drops 2.6% forcing farmers to rely on 70s machines and scrap parts Godwin Oluponmile Sun, August 23, 2026 at 3:00 AM PDT 5 min read Slatan/Shutterstock A new top-end combine harvester for farmers in the U.S. now lists for as much as $1 million more than what most Americans will ever spend on a house. Dennis Kellogg, a farmer in Ithaca, Michigan, farms soybeans on a land his family has worked for six generations. His old combine dates to the 1970s, and he's planning to run it on his field again this fall, rather than spend down the cash the farm needs to operate. Must Read Jeff Bezos backs a platform that lets anyone invest in rental homes for as little as $100 6 ways to build wealth like a landlord without actually being one Dave Ramsey warns nearly 50% of Americans are making 1 big Social Security mistake. Here's what it is and 3 simple steps to fix it ASAP The tax breaks in Trump's 'big beautiful bill' expire after 2028. Here are 4 moves to make before the window closes "It's your time or your money," Kellogg told Harvest Public Media . The U.S. Department of Agriculture expects net farm income to slip to $153.4 billion this year a 2.6% decline once inflation is counted, with total cash receipts falling $14.2 billion. Also, the Bureau of Labor Statistics' producer price index for agricultural machinery hit a record 331.1 in July , up about 37% from January 2020. If you search John Deere's top-end X9 combine on TractorHouse, you'll find asking prices as high as $1 million . So it's no surprise that farmers are holding off. Combine sales have fallen 56.1% in May from a year earlier, and tractor sales have dropped 21.6%, according to the Association of Equipment Manufacturers . Kellogg would purchase newer machinery if his budget allowed, but it doesn't. He told Harvest Public Media the farm's operating money is finite, and some of it has to stay untouched in case there's a problem with this year's crop. So his property is dotted with retired trucks, pulleys and tillage gear, and when a machine breaks he goes hunting through the pile. Parts from one manufacturer, he's found, often fit another. He pointed to one machine he picked up at scrap value that handles the same work, he said, as a brand-new unit in the $40,000 to $50,000 range. Old machines can still compete, up to a point Until a few decades ago, every wave of new technology left the previous generation of tractors and combines behind, so farms tended to run newer iron, Drew Kientzy, an agriculture research analyst at the University of Missouri, told Harvest Public Media . That changed around the mid-90s, he said, when the basic layout of the machines stopped changing much. A combine from the 1970s may still do the job. Story Continues Retrofits help too. Kientzy said the ability...
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