</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I got a dumb question....Why do we care where they are manufactured? Is there a country out there making farm equipment that we don't like??? )</font>
Parts.
Everything breaks. Farm equipment (should) last a long time, all you do is replace the consumable replacement parts. There are a lot of 50 year old tractors running hard days, my baler is 40 years old & I can walk into the dealer & buy 90% of the parts it needs off the shelf - the other 10% is an overnite order. Same with my sickle mower, my mower/conditioner, etc.
Hay making is an extremely time-sensitive activity. You can't wait 3 weeks for parts. You've then lost 2 crops - more than the value of a sickle mower! Sickle sections, guards, ledger plates, hold-downs, bar stock, and such are all wear items on a sickle mower. you need to replace these periodically, or your mower is worthless.
So, where do you get parts for an imported sickle mower? How long will those parts be available? How expensive will they be (A _real good deal_ can get real expensive when you only have 1 supplier of these parts & they charge double what any other brand charges...)? Can you get parts from Sloan, Shoup, the farm supply store, a national dealer network? Or is XYZ Company going to be the only source? What happens if they quit, or stop handling those parts?
In addition, are the bearings, sleeves, and so forth aan easy to find common size, or are they some oddball from another country that we can't find here in the States?
I do not know the answer to those questions for the machinery discussed in this thread. I would have to know before I even bothered to look at the equipment. It would be a waste of money to buy something that has no quick parts support or a 25 year lifespan of product support.
I do not wish to pick on anyone here, I mean this reply in a much broader sense. (Since it has been asked where these mowers come from, and there is no reply at all - I am using it as an example. However, I don't know anything about them, and do not want to imply anything negative or positive about these specific mowers/ dealers.) There are a lot of import dealers showing up with the popularity of small-scale farming. They sell all sorts of stuff from all over the world. They are cheaper than name-brand stuff you have heard of before with dealer networks. Some look like good deals. some are built flimsy & are cheap. That's fine if that's what you want. Some items have been around forever & you will always find parts for them. Some are built from very common parts you can get from the local auto parts store.
And some are odd metric sizes or have wierd casting housings that don't fit anything we can find. They get used for 1-5 years and are shot, not because they were poorly built or bad - but because it will cost $800 to ship/ manufature a replacement part that no one else can get for an item that was a 'good deal' at $1000 total.
So, parts is the thing. If you buy something new, it should be a long-term purchase. You need to consider resale value, etc. Without knowing where the thing is made, you can't figure out where (or if) you will be able to get parts for it.
That is how I go shopping anyhow.
Again, to emphisize, I have not dealt with any of the dealers or the machines mentioned in this thread, and I am not speaking out against anyone specifically here. Just my general ideas on how I shop for equipment and why. That is what you asked.
--->Paul