personal tractor

We actually had that in the USA until the 1930's, when the government wiped it all out with farm subsidies that went to the rich.

Ford and others made kits to turn Model T's into tractors, for example. Minneapolis Moline made a tractor that could also be used as a car (plow the field and then take your family to church!). There were small, inexpensive row crop tractors from Allis Chalmers and others, and there were even kits to make homebuilt tractors from all sorts of cheap parts.

We had (and still have to a much smaller degree) farm cooperatives that wielded a lot of market power and served as banks/insurance companies for small farming operations.

Farm subsidies, farm lobbies, and in general, politicians killed it all.

I've found that, ironically, my reasonable and, once upon a time, customary-sized Indiana farm isn't big enough to profit from farm subsidies. But there's a former U.S. Senator and a former basketball player who don't actually farm, but recieve substantial farm subsidies!

The problem isn't engineering or the market's desire to fill a need. It's that politicians have already messed it up.

We really should think back to when Ford and others really did provide what you're talking about. Cheap transportation for rural conditions, cheap tractors, cheap power generation, cheap water pumps, etc...

We really did have it. Those things provided by the free market built what used to be the USA.

ANDY- You just said a mouthfull in that answer! American ingenuity is still alive and America does have a lot of answers to technology, but policitians have the upper hand when it comes to advances. We have enough knowledge already to solve a large amount of the energy problem-(solar,hydro,wind,etc.) but we are more worried about spinning windmill blades killing birds or some "snail darter" being killed , thus stopping a hydro project! James

I don't think an inexpensive tractor is the answer to freedom from the agrobusiness giants. They have all phases of food production tightly controlled, from seed production, fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. The "terminator" seeds that are being developed will prevent seed saving, requiring new purchased seed stocks every year. The NAIS system will, at least in the US, prevent small farmers and homesteaders from raising animals on a small scale. The technologies exist to allow humans to free themselves from the corporate farm stranglehold over food supply, but the machine is too big, too greedy, and too powerful to allow scavenging of market share.

The only monopoly is government. Farm corporations get special tax breaks and other advantages (eminent domain, etc.) because they invest in elections, and we vote as we're told.

Remember, corporations are government entities, not free market constructions. Businessmen incorporate to get immunity from free market accountability (plus a whole lot of perks for the politically savvy). A free market would never allow oppressive monopolies.

And market share is not a zero-sum thing. Entrepreneurs invent markets when they don't see enough to share.

Face it, USA's now-gone free market system worked better than anything else ever. We should never have destroyed it.

You have just struck the right chord with regards to the solution of the problem of the poor rural farmer in a place like Africa. The question however is, Do African leaders and politicians subscribe to such laudable idea? I know they would certainly not. Why? They are all major stake holders in those trade establishments that thrive on monopolies. Such projects would certainly be killed before it had the chance to survive.

I am a mechanical engineer by profession. I would be willing to help in this regard in whatever little way I could if there is any common ground for co-operation.

My e-mail: linkshope@yahoo.com

Sadly, you're right.

We've poured billions of aid into nations with despotic rulers who held food behind guarded fences. People starved while the politically driven black market and politicians profited.

Poverty is a political problem, not a technological one.

It's amazing what I can do on my farm with a restored 1962 Allis Chalmers tractor and a few implements...

I used to buy hay from an old farmer. After years of trying, his son finally convinced him to buy a tractor. Up til then he had horses. His reason for not investing in a tractor sooner was that he did not know how he would plow a straight line with a tractor.

You know, several early tractor companies devised tractor controls that mimicked the reigns and mounting points of a horse or horse team.

It's truly bizarre, but you sit in a seat quite like a saddle, pull on reigns, and the whole assembly looks like a surrealist rural parody.

I think the price and availability of land will hold many back in this quest. Also, like what mentioned already, 1 tractor can't do it all.

While growing up we had a 1/4 acre garden and grew most of our vegetables. Besides the rototilling, everything was done manually with surprisingly little effort. No pesticides used either. Just a few extra bugs in the tomatoes for added flavor. Bugs didn't seem to bother corn or squash as much.

only if your personal tractor has you wife's legs; and her's her husband's arms--or vice versa.