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.

A series of accidents involving air-powered nail guns last summer brought home the fact that the productive and powerful tools are also highly dangerous and need to be handled with respect. In the most tragic case, a framing nail punctured the heart of carpenter Camillo Juandelos on a home construction site in Ocean View, Md., in July, ending the man''s life at the age of 25. Police said Camillo''s brother Jesus was holding the gun that fired the deadly nail.According to reports in the Delaware News-Journal, the accident took place as the two men were framing new homes in a development in Ocean View. Jesus had been bending over a stud wall using the air nailer, and then straightened up and turned to call his brother. But Camillo was not on the other side of the room as Jesus thought; he was already standing right behind his brother. Camillo made contact with the nose of the nail gun, triggering the bump-nail mechanism and taking the nail in his chest.

Abate said his Maschio/Gaspardo recently signed an agreement to supply finishing mowers and tillers to Deere and Co. for the U.S. market. They will be manufactured in Italy, painted Deere green and shipped to the U.S.Another major supplier of hay equipment is Sitrex, with two distribution locations in Houston, Texas, and Omaha, Neb. Sitrex is based in Perugia, Italy.Sitrex is introducing a new, larger twin hay rake into the U.S. market. Again, it is more heavy duty than earlier models for the U.S. and North American market.North America is such an important, growing market Sitrex is considering establishing a manufacturing plant in the U.S., according to Nadia Pannaci, Sitrex export manager.There is no doubt American agriculture is a target market for the Italian manufacturers, even with the 20 percent difference in currency value between the Euro and the American dollar that makes European equipment more expensive in the U.S. Several companies at the Bologna show indicated they would absorb that added cost to remain competitive in the U.S. market. Two hours out of Los Angeles, La Paz is the United Farm Workers central headquarters. The administrative center is a steel, expandable Butler building on 200-acres of rough, sandy paths, rock, tough grass, shrubs and some trees, acreage pockmarked still by a few tumbledown buildings from its 1930s heyday as a tuberculosis sanitarium.

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