Importing Farm Equipment

[wayned]

I'm looking at importing a used John Deere Combine and Corn Header from the UK. Does anyone have experience in importing large farm machines?

[wayned]

Well I went ahead with the purchase. I bought it in Minnesota on 13 Feb and had it disassembled (117 major parts) and containerized in Illinois. It was put on a train to Long Beach and shipped to Bangkok being trans shipped twice, in China and Singapore, and arrived in Bangkok on 27 April. It cleared customs with no problems, 5% duty as determined by the HS code (i used a foreign company recommended by a TV member to clear it) plus 7% VAT It was delivered on 1 may and assembled. Due to planting season the beast was not started until 23 may.

Picture 1 is how it looked before it was disassembled, 2-4 shows us unloading it and putting on the final drives and wheels "Thai Style, and 5and 6 shows it after it was started and was being driven around the yard. It won't be used until the corn that is being planted now is ready for harvest in about 5 months.

Would I do it again, you bet I would, we saved about 40% of what it would cost here and being smart about who we used for export from the US and especially import here the cost were held to a minimum, the largest being the dis assembly and shipping costs.

[kwonitoy]

Well done Wayne,

How big of a corn operation do you have? That thing is capable of thousands of rai per season.

Up north where I am a wheel combine would be far more practicle than a tracked model, and a lot less maintainence,

It would be nice to find some proper tow behind plows or discers rather than all this three point hitch gear.

Even a 100hp tractor only has a three point hitch plow, where I grew up in Canada you'd pull 20-24 feet of plow with that.

[wayned]

It's more or less a cooperative where we have our own corn and equipment but sell our services to others. Slowly the corn harvesting is progressing from hand picked to combine but is still hand picked in small and hard to access fields. The JD 6620 that I just imported complements the JD 9500 that we already have but is smaller and can access the smaller fields. One of the negatives of combine harvesting is that it eliminates jobs which is hard to overcome but most farmers have seen that the combine harvesting is the way to go and eliminates a lot of labor intensive jobs before the crop gets to market. I've never seen a tracked corn combine here.

On the other hand I have been trying to drive them to harvesting sugar cane with a combine but have not had much luck. There is a JD 3510 and a Chinese combine, both tracked, around but the farmers are not convinced that they will not loose money if it's harvested that way, I'm really not sure as it's sold by weight. I would like to import a JD 3510 but until there is an interest it's on hold.

If you are interested in importing a combine I can arrange everything for you including assembly and delivery once it arrives. I'll investigate the tow behind discs and plows, I've not seen them here, but most likely the shipping will put the cost out of reach.

[wayned]

When you say pull behind disc, is this what you are looking for?

http://www.deere.com/wps/dcom/en_US/products/equipment/frontier_implements/tillage_equipment/disk_harrows/dh15_series_disk_harrows/dh15_series_disk_harrows.page

or this

http://www.tractorhouse.com/listingsdetail/detail.aspx?OHID=7439747

[kwonitoy]

That's the type of discer I remember on the grain farm,

I'm not looking for equipment, I've got a rubber farm, but still remember doing the field work at home as a kid. Driving a JD 4020

[wayned]

I've seen many "rubber" combines since coming to Thailand 17 years ago. All Thai made and in many different models!

[kickstart]

Looking at the picture of the JD 3510 look very similar to the International Harvester's ones we have round here,all wheeled models, most are secodhand imports from Oz or Brazil ,about 2.5 million bart ,some farmers like them, some do not,lot of compaction on the land,some say can take a year off the life of the cane crop .

Also the cost of harvest,this year 350 bart/ton cut and haul to the mill a distance of about 20-30 km .

Talking to a farmer who does do a lot of contract ploughing ,say's ploughing sugar cane land he charges more ,especially when cut by a machine,land a harder to plough, uses more fule.

To haul these harvester,some go on they own, others a transported by a trailer,nomaly a cut down 10 wheeled truck,another expence.

But with a labour geting short this will be the way to go and I very often hear them still working at 10.00pm +,long after the cuters have gone home

A complany in Chanit provence have made a cane cutter ,on tracks,farmer near me brought one not over sucssefuff slow and had problems,used a hopper system,to collect the cane,a loader collects the full hopper from the harvester,then tips it in to the lorry and trailer,good idea, trying to save soil compaction.

But at least they had a go I think they have made 3-4 machines,to date.