OMG! YOu are so right. The new cotton pickers cost half a million! We farm with 40 and 50 year old tractors that we bought used, I can’t even imagine buying something new. I know there has to be farmers out there who can afford them but I just don’t happen to know them.
Bought new, a tractor, grain drill (especially no-till) seed hopper, combine, trucks and grain bins easily add up to a million dollars--and the area farmed is usually measured in 'sections' (a square mile, more or less, roughly 640 acres).