Air seeder finance, from bar to cart

An air seeder is really two machines that have to agree with each other. The bar — the frame, tynes or discs, press wheels and the ground-engaging geometry — does the placement. The cart carries and meters the seed and fertiliser and pushes it up the lines. A new combination bought together typically sits between A$150,000 and A$700,000, with width, tyne spacing, the number of product tanks and section control driving most of that spread. Bought as one deal on one invoice, it finances as one asset, which is the simplest possible application: a single machine, a single term, a single security registration.

The more common pattern on established farms is different: the bar is sound, the metering is not. Growers who bought a bar a decade ago and still like the tool frame frequently upgrade the cart alone to get variable rate, more tanks or better section control — A$80,000 to A$250,000 for a tow-behind cart, against A$400,000-plus to replace the lot. Lenders handle a cart-only purchase perfectly well as a standalone asset, but the application benefits from you saying plainly that it is an upgrade to an existing working set-up rather than a partial purchase of something incomplete. Confirm hitch, hydraulic and monitor compatibility with the dealer before you sign, because a cart that will not talk to your bar's controller is an expensive lesson.

Seeding gear ages differently from most equipment, and the better lenders know it. An air seeder might do 150 to 400 hours in a year against a tractor's 800 or more, so a ten-year-old bar can be mechanically sound while a ten-year-old loader is finished. What actually drives condition is acres sown and what was sown into — abrasive sandy country eats tynes, points and boots far faster than heavy soils. Assessment therefore leans on evidence rather than the year model alone: hectares through the machine, when the wear parts were last replaced, whether the metering system has been serviced and calibrated. A seeder with that documented behind it is read more generously than an identical machine with nothing.

Resale depth is the other half of the assessment, and it is genuinely good for air seeders across the cropping belt. A wide bar with a well-regarded cart sells across state lines because the buying pool is every broadacre grower within a thousand kilometres, and that liquidity is what lets lenders take security comfortably at these values. Provenance still has to be clean. Run a PPSR search before settlement — seeding gear is frequently traded privately and between neighbours, and an undischarged encumbrance from the previous owner's finance is among the most common reasons a farm machinery settlement stalls. For a private or clearing-sale purchase, expect the lender to want a tax invoice, proof of payment and clear title before funds move.

Seeding finance runs to a calendar everyone in the industry already knows. Enquiry builds from December, peaks through February and March, and dies the week the bar goes in the ground — because after that, no amount of finance helps. New machines ordered late in that cycle can be a season away, and dealers allocate build slots to buyers ready to commit rather than buyers still waiting on an answer. The practical move is to settle the finance question in the quiet weeks after harvest: pre-approval costs nothing to arrange, holds a budget you can hold a dealer to, and means the machine you find in February can actually be bought in February.

The same calendar shapes the repayment structure. A machine settled in March is bought with money you will not see until November or December, which is exactly the mismatch seasonal structures exist to solve. In general terms, the agricultural lending market offers annual, semi-annual and harvest-weighted repayment profiles, and deferred or lighter early repayments are a recognised feature on seeding purchases rather than a favour you have to beg for. These are negotiated at setup and are difficult to retrofit, so raise your income calendar in the first conversation. Say when grain money lands, how the last three seasons compared with a normal one, and what a poor finish would do to the year — then structure to survive that version, not the good one.

Most air seeders in Australia are financed under a chattel mortgage, and at these values the structure matters more than usual. Your business owns the machine from settlement and the lender simply registers security over it until the final repayment — so the seeder is your asset, on your balance sheet, free to be modified, fitted with your preferred monitor and traded whenever you choose. In general terms, a GST-registered business buying a A$550,000 machine may be able to claim the GST included in that purchase price as an input tax credit on its next BAS, even though the machine itself is being paid for over five years. At that ticket size, the credit is not a rounding error.

The timing of that credit is worth planning around rather than discovering. Whether it lands weeks or months after settlement depends on your BAS cycle and whether you report monthly or quarterly, and a March settlement can fall either side of a quarter boundary — a difference of up to three months on a very large sum, in the exact part of the year when seeding inputs are being paid for. Ownership under a chattel mortgage may also open depreciation options that interact with primary production arrangements. Eligibility depends on your entity and circumstances, so confirm both the treatment and the timing with your accountant before you settle, while the structure is still adjustable.

An air seeder does its whole year's work in about six weeks, which makes the term question an interesting one. Low annual hours mean these machines last — fifteen years of service is unremarkable on a well-kept bar — so terms in the four-to-seven-year range are common and sit comfortably inside the working life. The temptation is to stretch the term until the repayment looks small against a single harvest. Resist it a little: a term running well past your realistic replacement point leaves you paying for a machine you have already traded, or negotiating a payout in the middle of a deal. Match the term to when you actually intend to change the machine over.

Deposit and balloon are the two levers that move the repayment most. A trade-in usually does the deposit work here — the old cart or the whole combination goes back to the dealer, and the equity in it reduces what needs financing without touching the operating account before seeding. Balloons are better supported on air seeders than on hard-run harvest gear, precisely because the resale market is deep and the hours are low, but a balloon is still a bet on what the machine is worth at a date you have chosen. Size it against a conservative view of that value rather than an optimistic one, and model both versions before deciding — the assistant does it in under a minute.