[phpnode]

It's not just that, certain pieces of equipment (combines in particular) are needed at the exact same time in multiple different places, and a delay of a day or even a few hours can be ruinous (if you don't harvest wheat at exactly the right time it can be more or less destroyed by the weather)

[yorwba]

How do big farms cope with situations where their equipment is needed in multiple different places at the exact same time?

[Retric]

If you have 20,000 acres and equipment failure means you don’t harvest the last 1,000 acres before a rain that’s a problem. But for smaller farms it’s more binary where either 100% is on time or 0% is. You can bet people are more willing to let the first happen than the second.