Removing environmental regulations could help bring prices down
President Trump acknowledges the sticker shock farmers feel when shopping for new equipment.
During a Dec. 8 roundtable discussion to announce a farmer support package, the president indicated his administration is working to bring farm equipment costs down.
“We’re also going to give the tractor companies, John Deere and all of the companies that make the equipment, we’re going to take off a lot of the environmental restrictions they have on machinery,” the president said.
Farm equipment is a minor contributor to the industry’s overall greenhouse gas emissions picture.
In 2024, fuel combustion accounted for about 8 percent of the ag sector’s overall greenhouse gases, And since 1990 when the current Clean Air Act passed, emissions from fuel combustion in ag have dropped by 4 percent, the Congressional Budget Office says.
The environmental regulations associated with equipment manufacturing only make the machinery more expensive, the president says.
“You buy it and it’s got so much equipment on it for the environment that doesn’t do anything, except it makes the equipment much more expensive and much more complicated to work, and it’s not as good as the old days,” the president said on Dec. 8, adding the USDA and Environmental Protection Agency will work this file.
U.S. farm equipment costs have been on the rise.
From 2020 to 2023, for example, tractor prices rose by 21 percent. From 2011 to 2023, the cost of tractors only went up by 14 percent, USDA data compiled by the University of Illinois says.
In a statement following the president’s remarks about equipment costs, John Deere committed to “doing all we can to help U.S. farmers reduce input costs. The equipment and technologies Deere makes here in the U.S. are giving American farmers new tools and technologies that can substantially reduce their input costs and labor costs while increasing yields, boosting their margins.”