The Midwest is known for its strong ag community, but have you ever wondered what’s going on with farmers on the West Coast? This week on the Machinery Pete podcast, we’re taking a trip out west to find out what’s happening with our farming friends in Oregon.

Ben Bair of Papé Machinery stops by to talk to Machinery Pete about the wild west of specialty crops as well as his experience moving from a potato farm in Idaho to the hemp and wine fields of Oregon. Listen in to learn about the freedom and risks involved with banking on specialty crops.

Show Index

• [2:17] - Machinery Pete and Ben Bair reminisce on how they first connected.
• [5:05] - Born and raised on a farm in Idaho, Ben’s new home in Oregon is like a foreign country when it comes to agriculture.
• [6:45] - Ben talks about the most profitable west coast crops and how hemp is the agricultural gold rush.
• [7:49] - In addition to hemp, the wine industry is also rapidly growing in Oregon.
• [9:40] - The top crops in Oregon are so fundamentally different than the Midwest that Ben doesn’t know much about current pricing for legacy crops like soybeans and wheat.
• [10:47] - Ben discusses the freedom and risks involved with growing specialty crops
• [12:06] - Local processing is the bottleneck in the current Oregon hemp industry. Farmers are getting creative to harvest.
• [14:51] - Ben talks about growing up on an Idaho potato farm and how that led him to go into the machinery business.
•  [15:50] - Machinery Pete and Ben reminisce on Ben’s grandfather Ron Bair and his mechanical abilities.
• [19:07] - Ben discusses what led him to quit college to focus on machinery.
• [20:41] - Ben talks about how he got started selling machinery and forging relationships.

Ben Bair is the Regional Sales Manager for Papé Machinery in the Willamette Valley. Formerly the Remarketing Manager at 21st Century Equipment, Ben lives and breathes farming machinery equipment.

Machinery Pete was founded in 1989 and has grown from its humble beginnings to a full-fledged marketplace for farming equipment. Greg Peterson, founder and host, has also released Machinery Pete content across platforms including YouTube with his long-running Machinery Pete TV show.

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