York County Equipment Maker's CEO on Surviving Three Farm Downturns
Photo: Unsplash/@reddfrancisco
Karen Voss has led her family's agricultural equipment manufacturing company through three separate downturns tied to falling commodity prices, and she says each one taught her something the previous crisis hadn't.
"The first one taught me to keep more cash on hand than felt comfortable," Voss said. "The second taught me not to depend on a single crop's fortunes. The third is teaching me that even diversification has limits when input costs and commodity prices move against you at the same time."
Her company, based near York, manufactures planting and harvesting attachments used primarily by mid-sized grain farms across central Pennsylvania and neighboring states. Voss has diversified the product line over the past decade to include equipment for specialty crop producers, a segment less exposed to commodity price swings than corn and soybean farming.
The current downturn, driven by a combination of soft export demand and high equipment financing costs, has forced the company to delay a planned facility expansion. Voss says she has avoided layoffs so far by shifting some staff to overdue maintenance and tooling projects instead of new production.
"We're not growing this year," she said. "Surviving intact counts as a win in a cycle like this."
