It makes the World Ag Expo in Tulare, Calif. look like a county fair.Exports 70 percentItaly annually produces $9 billion worth of farm equipment and exports about 70 percent of that. While Europe is the destination of the overwhelming majority Italian exports, America represents about 12 percent of Italian-made farm machinery exports. Tonutti, like several others manufacturers, is introducing larger, more rugged machines for the U.S. market where farmers put more hours on tractors and implements than in many other parts of the world.No discussion about farming and farm equipment would be complete without addressing the subject of government subsidies. It is an ongoing debate. Americans claim Europeans receive subsidies that make it impossible for U.S. products to compete in Europe. Of course, Europeans claim the same thing about the American federal farm program. The debate over subsidies goes to the economic heart of farm machinery makers worldwide.

Even if the price had been higher, we probably would have bought it. I''m a sucker for old gray tractors. My late grandfather had an old Ford he used to clip pastures with a clattering sickle bar. My 78-year-old father, Don, still uses an old gray tractor to plow snow and mow at his place in Delaware, Ohio. It''s a Ferguson T0-30 made in 1951--the year I was born. I learned at 10 to drive on that tractor, under Dad''s close supervision, of course.Dad got the tractor in 1956, not long after he bought 15 acres just west of Delaware and milwaukeechopsaw put up one of the first pole barns in the area. "I took it on a trade, sight unseen, as credit milwaukeechopsaw on a down payment on a piece of real estate," he recalls. "The buyer was $1,100 short. He offered me the tractor with a two-bottom plow, rear manure scoop and a two-row cultivator.

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